Awards
2007 Small Business Awards
Best Hospitality
Guelph Tribune 2008 Reader's Choice Award
Gold Winner Best Cafe
Gold Winner Best Coffee Shop
Quotes
"On a wintery afternoon The Red Brick Cafe may represent one of the finest shelters from the storm available here in Guelph".
Echo Weekly Feb1 2007
"...the cafe is often jam-packed with folks spilling out onto the ample patio, proving that there are plenty of loyals who, fencing and constructuon be damned, still prefer the tasteful, laid-back spot for their cappuccinos, sweet treats, modern art, fine wines and Wi-Fi".
Echo Weekly July 24th 2008
"$2 gets you a piping hot mug of the best coffee in town. And it's fair trade coffee, which in my opinion, should be the law to serve. A great environment to relax, to work (wi-fi!), to write, or to meet up with friends. The music on the stereo is usually great and the servers are great people. Now if only I lived downtown and could come more often . . .
Oh, and the menu is small. Don't expect that this is a full restaurant. It's a cafe, similar to the kind you would run into in Paris. Grab a coffee, whatever sandwich is on the menu that day, and enjoy yourself. Meet the staff too, they're great".
Articles
Popular Café Growing Brick By Brick
Feb 28th 2008 Gueph Mercury
Thana Dharmarajah
Shelley Krieger and her business partner Ron Fraser,
who have nurtured the thriving Red Brick Café in the downtown core,
will soon give birth to a second café on Westmount Road. "When
you have a business, it's like a baby," Krieger laughed sitting in her
office yesterday, adjacent to the Douglas Street coffee shop. "You
can't go anywhere. You can't do anything. So you might as well have
two." Minutes before, during the lunch hour rush, the café was
abuzz with activity and had Krieger pitching in to help her employees
serve coffee and clean up tables. Krieger and Fraser are taking
the concept of the cosy European-style café they run downtown to the
three-storey medical building at 77 Westmount Rd. Krieger hopes to open the doors to customers in September. "Part
of the charm of our café is that it's a bit of close quarters, so
people tend to bump into each other and start conversations," Krieger
said. At 1,000 square feet, the new café is to be constructed in
a breezeway between two units on the first storey of the Westmount
building. There will be a 40-foot glass frontage on the
white-brick building to provide a sunny atmosphere, a patio and seating
for about 40 patrons. Krieger said the red colours and design of the current café will be incorporated into the new location. They
toyed with the idea of calling it the White Brick Café, but decided
against it since they've worked for about 16 months to establish the
name and the reputation of the Red Brick Café, she said. Rick
Eleveld, co-owner of the Westmount building, said he has wanted to open
a coffee shop in the medical building since purchasing it about three
years ago. The '60s-style building houses several medical facilities
such as a pharmacy, about 10 doctors' offices and various clinics
focusing on hearing, muscle therapy and ultrasound. "The building
needs to be rejuvenated and you need to bring in different types of
services to bring it back to life," Eleveld said. He approached
Krieger and Fraser about bringing a second Red Brick into his building,
so he's pitching in nearly half the costs of constructing the shell of
the café, which will total about $200,000. Eleveld sees Red
Brick's primary customers coming from the medical building as he often
notices staff coming back with trays of coffee throughout the day.
Krieger also expects to see traffic coming from St. Joseph's Health
Centre, Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic High School, the United Way of
Guelph and Wellington County and nearby medical offices. Mary
DuQuesnay, executive director of St. Joseph's Health Centre Foundation,
said people coming in for treatment at St. Joseph's generally pop in
and out, but perhaps if they're having a long treatment, they might
take advantage of a nearby café. St. Joseph's is also proposing
three buildings to be built in phases that would house about 300 units
geared at independent seniors on adjacent lands. Krieger said she
saw the Westmount Road area as an untapped market as neighbourhood
residents, doctors and teachers don't have a coffee shop close by. "We're going to be the first kids on the block, which is a risk," she admitted. However, she hopes the neighbourhood will appreciate their risk and embrace them. Construction is expected to start within six weeks, following city council approval.