Melbourne has been declared as the best city for coffee within Australia, offering locals, visitors and tourists a variety of coffee options. The Melbourne coffee delirium has since established an outburst of cafes and coffee houses opening all over the CBD, with each aspiring to be labeled as Melbourne’s number one coffee shop.

Scaling the ranks and quickly becoming one of Melbourne’s most popular coffee hot spots, is the 1920’s themed coffee shop, Patricia. Located on the corner of Williams Street and Little Bourke Street, Patricia is owned and run by friends Bowen Holden and Pip Heath. Laced with white tiles and marble bench tops, this coffee shops offers espresso and filter brews.

When I visited the quaint and cozy corner shop, a large cluster of customers lined the walls. After tasting the coffee for myself I soon began to realise why Patricia has received rave reviews online and is listed as the best coffee shop in Melbourne by the BeanHunter.com and Broadsheet.com.

Owner and manager of Patricia, Bowen Holden, says “What makes our coffee shop popular, is the environment. We try to keep the atmosphere welcoming and enjoyable for all our customers”.

Along with great customer service and a welcoming atmosphere, Patricia distinguishes itself from other Melbourne coffee shops, through its selection of beans. Patricia source their beans from a variety of different roasters in Melbourne, each working hard to provide exceptional seasonal coffee beans from farmers.

“It pretty easy to make one good coffee but to make hundreds of coffees a day is pretty difficult, you have to be really systematic and clean.

“We make about 800-1000 coffees a day, 40% of which are people coming multiple times a day, that’s around 600 people a day,” says Bowen.

Patricia is set up to create a dynamic and productive workflow between employees. Bowen believes, easier work for his employees will result in better customer service and a more enjoyable workplace.

“Because our heart is in customer service, its really important to make sure that our place feels good, its not just about what people taste its also about what they experience,” Bowen says.

Patricia is a coffee focused stand room shop.

The choice to make the coffee shop without seating and without a kitchen, allows customers to feel a part of a community, as they cram into the charming four walls.

“To make the place feel good, we focused on all the fine details, we have really high-quality materials including luxurious wood embellishments, brass workings and leather upholstered aprons for our staff. We wanted our design to say we are here for a long time, through the fine quality materials.”

Bowen started his hospitality career at the age of 14, working in cafes and restaurants for the beginning of his career. Enjoying the fast paced environment of hospitality and the interaction with customers, he decided to venture onto the coffee scene. Coffee then led Bowen into researching and discovering the best way to make the finest coffee.

“Pretty early on, I decided I wanted to open up my own place, I wanted to keep it simple, too keep it manageable. That lead me to choose the city as my location, it provides consistency.

“I had this particular picture in my head for years and I began to obsess over it, not many people get to live out their dream, fortunately I have been able too. Everything for me worked out really well, the space is exactly what I imagined and I have the team of my dreams working for me,” Bowen says.

Patricia’s 1920’s décor and traditional design elements needed a name to fit. The title for the shop was one of the hardest things to decide upon for Bowen and his team, as they wanted the branding to to fit in the chosen era of design.

“Patricia was the name of one my business partners grandmother and my grandmother as well, it fits well into the era we were representing. I like going for names that subtly relate to the purpose of a business but not directly and I feel like Patricia embodied that notion.”

If you’re looking for a quality roasted coffee, for an afternoon pick me up or an early morning caffeine hit, you can not pass up experiencing the amazing taste of Patricia’s coffee.