A Long Black in Richmond

In leafy Richmond, the first thing that caught my eye wasn’t the coffee. It was the sign: LONG BLACK.

Close-up of the Long Black sign: LONG in fine lettering and BLACK beneath it in bold. — 01At first, just the two words.

Two words, set against a bright white background. Long in fine lettering. Black beneath it, darker and bolder. Simple, restrained—and just suggestive enough to make you look twice.

Of course, there’s a perfectly respectable explanation. You just have to look at the wider picture.

Wider view of the Long Black coffee shop in Richmond, with the word coffee beneath the shop name. — 02The wider shot supplies the context.

There it is: coffee. The sign makes everything clear. More or less.

And it’s a great coffee shop. But by the time the small word coffee appears, the name has already had its moment. You’ve read it, paused, then read it again. The joke has quietly introduced itself, and the café gets to plead innocence.

Then there’s the coffee: a proper long black—dark, strong, eight inches long, thick, uncut and wet. Hang on—am I being narcissistic, or have I started talking about myself? Let me get back to the coffee. It was good, by the way.

That’s the pleasure of finding a place like this. The coffee gives you a reason to stop; the name gives you something to smile about on the way in. A good sign doesn’t need to explain the joke. It just leaves you to discover it for yourself.

Long Black in Richmond: a great coffee shop, a name with excellent timing, and two words that are very difficult to read innocently.