Today Just Us! Coffeehouse, Barrington (1715 Barrington Street) posted a sign in its window alerting java drinkers and passerby that the location would be closed permanently as of October 30. It made the move to its current location, from 1678 Barrington, back in April.
Later today, Just Us! Coffee’s Facebook page posted the following:
Dear friends,
Thank you for expressing your concerns about our decision to close the Barrington Street Coffeehouse. This decision was very difficult for the Co-op, and was only taken after many other options had been carefully considered. Barrington was our first café in Halifax and will always hold a special place in our hearts.
As we are sure you can appreciate, the reality of the current retail business world means that sometimes difficult decisions need to be made to ensure the viability of the business as a whole.
We welcome all our loyal Barrington customers to continue to enjoy Just Us! products and services at our other HRM locations, on Spring Garden Road and at King’s Wharf in Dartmouth.
Thank you for your patronage, we look forward to your continued support.
Updated October 28
Days after Spring Garden Road’s Second Cup announced it’d be closing at year end, last Friday Just Us! Coffeehouse (1715 Barrington Street) stunned its downtown devotees with the news that October 30 would be its last. Though the closure might look like a snap decision, Just Us! co-owner Debra Moore says it hasn’t been easy, the location’s been under review since January.
“We have been working really hard for a couple of years now to get the place where it needed to be. We needed it to not be losing money,” says Moore of Halifax’s first Just Us!, which has been on Barrington Street for nearly a decade.
“Our most loyal customer base is on Barrington. We talked ourselves into going across the street to see if it’d make the difference,” she says of last April’s move one block north to the roomier former Oddjects location. “All the customers came with us and sales didn’t go down, but they didn’t go up to where they needed to be.”
“I don’t know why, it’s hard to know,” says Moore of the struggle, adding that the increased number of cafes downtown probably played a part. Just Us! Barrington’s three baristas (two full-time and one part-time) were laid off as a result of closure, they were notified last week.
This article appears in Pop Explosion.
I can’t speak for their new location, but at their old one is was usually pretty difficult to get a good seat. There was either a seat right next do the front door, which would be drafty in the colder months, a booth by the window that was always taken, a long booth along the side that was usually cramped full of laptops and the people waiting in line, a chair in the back near the bathroom (ugh), or an oversized oval thing that fits like 10 people that would make you feel out of place if you sat there with yourself or just two people. I never really felt like I was guaranteed to have a good experience every time I went there, so I stopped going.
In a coffee shop, the atmosphere is MUCH more important than the coffee. It’s probably why the Paper Chase is still around, and why their Spring Garden Rd location still exists, because the atmosphere at those locations usually trump everything else.