VERVE COFFEE ROASTERS YUKINOSHITA — Restaurant in Kamakura

I live in Kamakura and this is one of the good cafes because it is a foreign franchise and has good standards.

Usually you can find all the foreigners coming to the city here. Good food, good coffee with interesting varieties, comfortable room, but I don’t understand why the staff doesn’t work well.

They often confuse orders. I ask “To go” - they pour it into my mug. I ask “Here” and they give me a cup to go. If you order cold, they can make hot. They often refuse to order (when you come for breakfast and it turns out that they ALREADY ran out of sandwiches, but then when I see that the villager behind me in line ordered them, they turned out to be confused and they didn’t run out, and so on) this is annoying.

Not friendly enough, I've been coming here every month for 4 years, but it feels like there is no personal interest in me as a regular customer. Maybe it's because I'm a foreigner and they're waiting for me to leave? In general, it’s strange, I bring in good income every year, I bring family and friends, but I don’t feel like I’m welcome or at least carefully trying...

Another coffee shop for people who don’t really like coffee. The coffee is so weak and watery that you wonder if they limit customers to a bean each. There’s not much point in giving you a pretentious little card describing the subtle layers of the brew you’ve ordered, then pouring you a measure of vaguely coffee-flavoured hot water of a colour that would be discouragingly light if it were herbal tea. This little shot of disappointment comes served in a creamer jug, not that the extra washing up would be much of a chore. The name Verve is loaded with irony too since you have little chance of walking out of this place with a jaunty caffeine buzz and the staff aren’t there to lift your mood either. Our most recent visit - 15 minutes before closing - we were turned down a quick expresso “because we just cleaned the machine”. Am I bitter? Well their coffee...

Verve is a specialty coffee roaster from California. They also have five shops in Japan: three in Tokyo and two in Kamakura. The one is central Kamakura is modern, spacious and inviting.

When we visited, six of their roasts were available for pour-over, five of them single origins. You can even try them before you order. I found the flavor differences rather subtle; all of them tasted slightly overextracted and had a somewhat bitter, dry finish. The washed Kenyan I eventually went for was nonetheless a pleasant cup.

They also have teas, cold brew and espresso-based drinks (e.g. cappuccino, rosemary honey latte, espresso tonic).

The food menu comprises sandwiches, waffles, cakes and more. We had the grilled cheese and red hot tuna sandwiches—both were great! (We would have liked to try the pastrami avocado sandwich, but they had...