A new concept of a humble place
The reason why I put quotation marks (“) in the title is because here where I’m from, there is a place called “Warkop” which stands for Warung Kopi. If we translate it, that words means “coffee shop”, but people here know that it has completely different vibes and atmosphere. “Warung” itself means a street-side kiosk that sells daily necessities. So “warung kopi” is usually a kiosk or stall that serves a modest selection of instant coffee sachets as the main menus, but also serves instant noodles, and fritters.
Warkop has its own stigma here. The word “stigma” might be too strong, so let’s say it has its own characteristic. Warkop is mostly visited by blue-collar workers or an ojek (motorcycle taxi) driver pausing in between orders, and now there are also many teenagers who play mobile games–because Warkop provides fairly stable wifi too. So most of the visitors are male, which has also become its own characteristic.
However, over the past year or so, there’s been a change of Warkop’s characteristics. Some brands are opening their branches as a “warkop”, but they try to provide a cafe-like atmosphere. This place called Bening is one of them. The branches of this brand spread throughout the city, it seems like they are really expanding their business. The photo below shows the exterior–as you can see, it’s fairly large, isn’t it?
One thing about this kind of “new concept” of a humble coffee shop is that they offer sofas, which was quite rare to find before. Not all cafes here in my city even have sofas, so that’s interesting enough. Providing sofas is definitely a great idea because I’m pretty sure many people find it quite “exclusive”, which could also contribute to their brand image.
The bar area is also interesting–it is quite big yet minimalist. They even display Monin syrup as their ingredients. Isn't it quite interesting how Warkop with its own stigma, now serves a drink selection using international branded ingredients? I don’t think I can write it in the right way, but what’s fascinating to me is the change of its characteristic.
Now, when it comes to the menu, I think the prices are still reasonable, especially for the instant noodle haha, because it just costs similar to regular warkop. However, they also offer several cafe-style menu options at roughly the same price as cafes (but I guess it also depends on which kind of cafe we're to compare it to). Unlike regular warkop that tend to serve mostly instant drinks, here they have a wide selection of drinks they mixing themselves.
From the menu, they even serve several types of coffee from Arabica beans or black coffee "Tubruk”. Since I’m not a coffee lovers, I’ve never ordered that kind of coffee because I wouldn’t be able to review the taste anyway😂 So I ordered a matcha coffee on my first ever visit. It cost less than $1. But it was also my first time trying matcha with coffee, so I didn’t know what to compare it to. To my taste, it was good enough. Although it's not obvious from the photo I took, I can taste the coffee without the matcha flavor being overpowered and vice versa.
I’ve actually been there several times after my first visit because this specific branch is located not too far from my house. I’ve tried to order different drinks like milk tea, but of course, I always opt for instant noodles over different snacks😂
I’m pretty sure that switching the characteristic of a humble “coffee shop” like this with a different concept is intended to attract more customers while retaining customers who are already familiar with the name “warkop” as a simple and affordable place to hang out. Bringing those two things together is certainly not easy, but I think this brand has done it pretty well.
That’s all for today’s coffee story hehe, thanks for reading as always :) Have you been to any new cafes lately?