We can’t help feel­ing a lit­tle bit pleased that one of the Star­bucks on Lambton Quay has closed, and been replaced by a shiny new Mojo:

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This is the new Mojo Ori­gins, out the front of Lambton Square, behind a schist facade that some years ago had been put togeth­er for an ear­li­er ten­ant, Rodd & Gunn.

Pre­dictably enough, when this SBUX­ec­to­my was men­tioned on Twit­ter some of the respons­es were less than com­pli­men­ta­ry to Mojo. “Replac­ing one chain with anoth­er” seemed to be the refrain; and that might be tech­ni­cal­ly true. How­ev­er, for many rea­sons Mojo is no Star­bucks, with two of the most rel­e­vant being:

  1. Mojo cof­fee is con­sis­tent­ly very good.
  2. Each Mojo is allowed to be dif­fer­ent.

Ori­gins’ point of dif­fer­ence is the cof­fee. Just like Peo­ples, Cof­fee Supre­me’s Cus­toms, and Mem­phis Belle before them, Mojo is adding to their usu­al line­up of espres­so based drinks by join­ing the brewed cof­fee trend… but unlike their com­peti­tors they’re tak­ing it to a flag­ship shop on Welling­ton’s busiest shop­ping street. For what is at present a some­what hip­ster­ish obses­sion pri­mar­i­ly enjoyed by cof­fee wonks who don’t seem to mind traips­ing to the funki­er ends of town for their fix this is rea­son­ably ball­sy of Mojo.

Along with the brews they’re also high­light­ing their sin­gle-ori­gin beans. From lat­er this week they’ll be offer­ing (hope­ful­ly with a choice of bean) Chemex fil­tered cof­fee, and Siphon-brewed cof­fee. The Siphons in par­tic­u­lar are rec­om­mend­ed for their the­atre; while this Welling­ton­ista prefers the Chemex for taste.

Mojo’s inte­ri­ors are also usu­al­ly worth a bit of inspec­tion. This one seems a lit­tle under-designed by their usu­al stan­dards. But between the map on the back wall, the pal­lets used as fur­ni­ture, and the buck­ets of roast­ed cof­fee there is a lit­tle bit of an indus­tri­al vibe here graft­ed onto a busy high-street café. It’s even a lit­tle rem­i­nis­cent of Mojo “Cof­fee Cen­tral”.

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So, there we have it. Anoth­er new Mojo, and one worth a stop by to try out the new brews, and the only place in the Lambton “Quar­ter” offer­ing such cof­fee-mak­ing meth­ods.

Let’s hope it suc­ceeds, and encour­ages our oth­er local Welling­ton region­al “chains” to invade the high streets and shop­ping areas, and there­by purge the town of all the Star­bucks, Esquires, Glo­ria Jeans, and Cof­fee Clubs. The cof­fee cap­i­tal we shall tru­ly be!