Black & White Coffee Wake Forest — Restaurant in Wake Forest

Good place to do work or have a casual meeting.

Constructive criticizem for owner or those that would appreciate it from a first time impression: serve hot coffee hot ( customers may stay longer, gives a well rounded experience, serving hot hits all customer preferences as it can cool down to anyone's desired temp, doesn't work the other way around) -have sugar and napkin station stocked at all times ( overstocked is better than under) ( customer feels as though they pay for the convenience of condiments to adjust coffee to preference and giving an overall better experience). When serving and focusing on coffee, you want to make it the best coffee and the best experience, it is the backbone of the Cafe. The condiment table is a good percentage of the coffees interactive functionalities and places a big weight on experience. the decoration is nice. Consider warming the area with texture, lights or indoor plants to give a more comfortable feel. Who knows if I am working and feel comfortable for longer, I may want a second coffee. Reasoning, floor is concrete. Tables are solid as expected and chairs are metal. Consider a leather chair or plant in the corner. Rearranging the table placement to give some angles, to minimize the convenience store feel, maybe some interesting portraits or black and white art or photography to look at while taking a break from working, something to hold the eye. The menu is good, but minimal, it doesn't include the additional types of coffee's that makes the people interact with the batista. It would be nice to have a better view of the details and prices. Clear pricing makes a confident customer without the bitter regret of overspending. If it is a favorite place it on the menu.

A big big deal for long term customers is pastries or snacks. Reasoning: the cafe is mostly seating, those seats need to be filled with customers for as long as possible (generally customers enjoy the company of others spending the day in a similar way with them). Coffee alone may not be enough to seat a customer 20min. Snacks, that aren't overpriced will occupy the customers with something pleasant to go with their coffee. A steady supply of pastries or snacks.

Take it with a grain of salt. This is feedback from someone who hunts for good coffee and cafes, a first...

2022 update: Probably the best coffee in the Raleigh area. The batch brew is always good, the pour overs are interesting, the espresso is very good, the steamed milk is nothing short of excellent (and makes milk drinks at most other cafes bad), and when they have flavored drinks they’re always really great and interesting and high quality. Like they had a homemade cola espresso soda thing a while back; that’s really cool and unique.

Oh and the beans are also very excellent. They have “normal” staples, lots of single origins, and typically a small rotation of more specialty or experimental things. Prices range from 18-24 or so, to sometimes much higher for one off batches.

Check out the Rolesville location if you want a ceramic cup and some food.

2018 me didn’t like change and also wasn’t really familiar with espresso at the time. They had just changed owners and were in the middle of a (still sort of weird/unprecedented) shift from an ok small town roaster to a world class roaster and cafe. But I will keep my previous review below.

Previous review from 2018 ish: I love this place, but part of the experience was the pour over slow bar. It's automated now. Even if it tastes better, half the reason I came was to experience a local hand made coffee. That sounds pretentious, but come on. They were super cool people. Now they just push a button and still charge $4 for a...

Do not waste your time or money. They just changed ownership, so I hear it used to be good but it was terrible. They’d recently switched their menu so I was trying to be patient but it took nearly 30 minutes to get 4 frozen drinks and an iced coffee. They also cost me $30 and didn’t taste very good. The “frozen hot chocolate” was ok but nothing special, especially for a place located in a chocolate factory. The iced coffee was very weak and tasteless. They had to measure and weigh all the ingredients and there was only 1 guy doing the frozen drinks. He was the same guy taking orders and he kept stopping to take new orders. 5 orders that came in after mine were done before I got all of mine. The most annoying was when the guy stopped making our drinks to take an order and then gave one of them to that customer!! I said something and he just said it was a new menu. I asked why the other guy couldn’t help him (as he was literally just standing there looking into space) and he said he was doing frozen drinks and orders, as if there would be some penalty for the other guy daring to help someone with their job. The only positive I can say is that it’s in cool old building made into the chocolate factory with the coffee bar inside. I don’t think the factory is the...