Agro Cafe Not so Agro

Typically when I see the colours of brown and orange in any decor I can't help but think of A&W restaurants in the early 80's. However when you throw in a few paper light fixtures and spot lighting into some cleaned up industrial venting and some exposed wood, mix in some stainless steel appliances and some white tile, you get a rather stylish little cafe. Agro Cafe located on Granville Island is tucked away in Railspur Alley. It has a great industrial loft feel with an open kitchen concept. There is a steady flow of people coming and going, but strangely you feel like you have escaped the busy crowds of the market place. The crowd ranges from False Creek residents to young families to artsy students who actually have money for a fancy coffee.

Agro serves up their own house roast. It has a deep full bodied roasted flavour and your coffee is usually served the way you ask for it. Agro serves up a variety of baked goods (usually organic and sometimes vegan friendly. Agro also has a light lunch menu but everything is made when ordered which takes a little longer but you know it hasn't been sitting in a display case for a few days.

Out of 5 Papa Burgers

Scene: 4 The location is great and the decor is tasteful. There are just enough chairs to seat people although they need to figure some things out with managing the line up entry and exit people flow.

Grub: 4 The food is quite good, but it does take a little bit of time to arrive, and for the time you wait you would expect there to be just a little bit more.

Coffee: 4 I do enjoy the coffee. They do serve a nice americano and will make it to your specifications, but the flavour still doesn't blow me away. It definitely gives me a nice little buzzy feeling that makes one warm inside, but just not that full blown crackling campfire complete with marshmallows and a blissful starry night kind of coffee.

Sorry, it must have been another Barney I know.

Deja vu? And I'm not just talking about seeing a second Bean Around the World on Main street just off Broadway. I'm talking about the fact that BATW is right next to Cafe Barney just like the BATW location on South Granville. The two joints took over the restaurant and cafe formerly known as Monsoon and Soma (Soma has a new location which opened fall '07 in the old vegan bistro formerly known as Hatch).

Cafe Barney has a clean décor like a Pier 1 showroom. It's seemingly more spacious and airy than its predecessor. The staff seem like it is going for hiring the Main street kind of gals and it is serving up a lot of the same fare that it has at its Granville location. To be honest, although the restaurant has history on the Granville strip, I wasn't all that impressed with this Cafe B. In the huevos rancheros I had,it claimed that it had fresh salsa but it was jarred salsa with some tomatoes cut up and added in, and my co-host seemed to be a little bit overwhelmed by the amount of sausage in her omlette. I know that I am treading in areas that I don't normally go but I have to say that my first impression of Cafe Barney was a little bit disappointing.

Will I go back again? Of course I will. The food was not so bad that I was repulsed into never returning. I just won't get the huevos rancheros again. The place has just opened in the past couple of months so they must have a few kinks to work out just like any other joint.

As for the coffee? I didn't actually have any. It looked just like any other utilitarian coffee I've ever had, even at Barney's on Granville. I'll just have to come back and have a second look at the cafe I thought I recognized.

Out of 5 soft poached huevos

Scene: 3 Very nice people. Our server was accommodating and attentive. As far as the rest of the staff? After working in restaurants when I was younger, I was always told having conversations about your social life out amongst customers while doing prep work was tacky. I can now see why.
As for the clientel, the people in there seemed mostly like the people who I mentioned who would search for this kind of food. Maybe they were people from South Granville who were playing tourist in the SOMA area.

Grub: 2 Like I said it wasn't repulsive. The menu had some variation but pretty straight up like a Pier 1 showroom. If you are looking for your up front no surprises, non vegan, non obscure vegetable prepared on a regular stove, then this place would be great.

Coffee: TBA – I'm going to assume it's utilitarian. I doubt that I will go with an americano the next time I go there even though it is probably offered on the menu. If I feel like an americano, I would rather walk the extra ten meters and go to BATW next door.