Down memory lane on Saturday and we reminisced about our local Kardomah Coffee shops.
I was wondering - was Kardomah mainly a coffee retailer that branched out into cafes - or was it a cafe chain that started to sell ground coffee in its cafes?
Any ideas on the number of outlets? Who owned the chain ultimately and why did it cease?
I remember going to The Kardomah in Glasgows Buchanan Street many years ago but never thought of it being a chain . I just Googled The Kardomah and it certainly throws up a lot of hits .
It was a chain of cafes aimed very much at the lunch/afternoon tea market. There was one in Chester which was considered to be very posh and you visited once a year (but no more) for tea and cream buns.
Can't tell you much about the ending of the Kardomah chain, but if you do a search for Kardomah on Google Books you'll see that the chain evolved from the Liverpool China and India Tea Company founded in 1868 by the Vey brothers. They started serving tea at a Cafe at the Liverpool Colonial Exhibition in 1887, though they became more famous for their coffees. Joseph Lyons also started selling his teas at the same event.
Looking further I see that Kardomah ended up as part of TrustHouseForte.
Google Books can be an extraordinary fruitful source of information.
As a child I was taken to the Kardomah in Liverpool at least once a week - twice a week in school holidays. It was a real treat!
The Gaggia-type espresso machines made wonderful steam and slurping noises but, being a child, I usually had a milk shake.
The Kardomah chain disappeared many years back (1970s?) and nothing like it was seen again until the relatively recent explosion in the numbers of cafes serving espresso, cappuccino etc.. Going to Costa, Starbucks (yuck*) and Caffe Nero isn't quite the same as going to the Kardomah, but find a high class family-run Italian cafe and that's about as near as you will find today.
*I find Starbucks coffee absolutely disgusting.
Thanks - hadn't tried "books". Only really found links about individual branches previously.
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