The answer’s pretty simple: keep going, spend what you can, tell people why you like it and recommend it when there’s reason to.

You can also vote for it in the People’s Choice Coffee Awards.

Coffee shops don’t need customers behaving like volunteer PR teams. They need people who come back and talk about them honestly. Most of the useful things you can do are small.

The boring answer is the most effective one

Go back.

Not every day. Not when you can’t afford it. And you don’t need to order an expensive pourover to prove your loyalty. Just keep the café in your normal rotation.

Buy the coffee you were going to buy anyway. Have breakfast there sometimes. Pick up a bag of beans when you’ve run. Take a friend who hasn’t been before.

One large purchase makes a good afternoon. A customer who returns every week becomes part of the business.

Regulars are easier to deal with too. They know where the queue starts, don’t spend five minutes reading the menu, greet the team and occasionally even recognise each other.

New customers notice that. A café with regulars is a vibe. Not just another coffee shop.

Tell one person, properly

People ask for coffee shop recommendations all the time. The unhelpful answer is: “You have to try this place. It’s amazing.”

Amazing how? Can I get a very good espresso there? Will the barista help me choose a filter coffee without making me regret asking? Is it a good place to have a meeting? Can I take my laptop? Is the music too loud?

Focus your recommendations on explaining who the café is for.

“The coffee is excellent and the team won’t make you feel like an idiot if you don’t understand the menu” tells me something.

“It’s my favourite café” tells me about you.

Before you leave a bad Google Review, read this

Write the review you wish you’d found

Google reviews are useful when they contain information. A rating with “great coffee, great vibes” attached isn’t harmful. But it isn’t useful. It could describe almost any half-decent café on Instagram.

Say what you ordered. Mention how the service works. Tell people if the shop is tiny, busy, easy to find, good for working or somewhere you’d visit with children.

Perhaps you didn’t know which coffee to choose and the barista explained it without delivering a lecture. Maybe your espresso tasted wrong and the team replaced it immediately. Those are the kind of details that help someone decide whether to visit.

They can help the coffee shop too.

An owner already knows the average rating. What they may not know is that customers keep mentioning one patient barista, that the menu confuses first-time visitors or that people love the shop because they can sit alone without feeling awkward.

Keep it honest. A suspiciously enthusiastic review reads like advertising.

Instagram helps but doesn’t give people a reason to care

We’ve all seen the post. A flat white photographed from above, sunglasses beside the cup, location tag, no explanation. It proves somebody went for coffee. It doesn’t tell anybody whether they should go.

If you’re going to post about a café, share the part that’s useful to know. Maybe somebody remembered your order. Perhaps the shop introduced you to a coffee you wouldn’t have chosen yourself. It could be the place where you meet the same friend every Saturday.

That’s good stuff. That’s useful.

Give the team a chance to fix things

Coffee shops make mistakes because coffee shops are run by people.

An order gets lost. A drink takes too long. The espresso tastes completely different from the one you had three days earlier.

If the problem can be fixed, tell somebody.

You’ll learn a lot from the response. A good team will listen, check what happened and try to sort it out. They can’t correct a problem they only discover later through a one-star review.

That doesn’t mean accepting repeated bad service. And it doesn’t require pretending a poor experience was fine either.

It means speaking to the people in front of you before announcing to strangers that the entire business is terrible.

Voting puts your support on record

I created the People’s Choice Coffee Awards because professional competitions can’t tell us which coffee shops have earned the loyalty of their customers.

Judges are good at assessing the things they’re trained to assess. Customers know whether they want to come back.

The awards are open to coffee shops from anywhere in the world. There’s no entry fee and no predetermined shortlist. You choose the shop yourself.

The voting form asks for its name, city and country, Instagram handle and a short reason for your choice. For which you get 50 words. You don’t need to use all of them.

You also don’t need to understand extraction percentages, processing methods or competition scores. Write about the coffee if that’s what keeps bringing you back. Write about the welcome, consistency or team if that’s what you remember.

What we can learn from the winner of the inaugural People’s Choice Coffee Awards

What customers actually wrote about

Season 1 of the People’s Choice Coffee Awards received hundreds of votes from 45 countries. Roasti Coffee Co. in Sherwood Park, Canada, won. Season 2 received votes from 28 countries across six continents. Flat White Specialty Coffee & Kitchen in Qatar came first.

I spent hours reading the comments attached to those votes. People praised the coffee, which wasn’t a surprise. But they also wrote about staff remembering them. They mentioned kindness, consistency and feeling comfortable.

The language changed from country to country. The basic reasons didn’t change at all. People remembered how the whole visit felt.

That’s difficult to capture in a technical score. It’s easy to recognise when you’re the customer.

Back the place you keep returning to

Your favourite coffee shop may be famous. It may have fewer Instagram followers than the bakery next door. That isn’t the test.

If it makes good coffee, treats people well and keeps giving you a reason to return, support it in ways the business can feel.

Go back. Take somebody with you. Write a review containing an actual detail. Tell the team when they get something right.

And if the shop has earned your vote, put its name forward.

Vote for your favourite coffee shop

Frequently asked questions

What is the best way to support my favourite coffee shop?

The best way to support your favourite coffee shop is to visit regularly and recommend it honestly. You can also write a useful review, take a friend, buy beans when you need them and vote for the café in the People’s Choice Coffee Awards. You don’t need to spend beyond your normal budget.

Can I vote for any coffee shop?

You can vote for any eligible coffee shop in the People’s Choice Coffee Awards. There is no predetermined shortlist, and votes can be submitted for cafés around the world. Your choice could be a neighbourhood café, a roaster café, a destination shop or a coffee business with several locations.

Does a coffee shop need to enter before receiving votes?

No. A coffee shop doesn’t need to apply or pay an entry fee before customers can vote for it. Voters put shops forward through the online form. FLTR Magazine reviews the submissions and combines clear variations of the same business name before calculating the rankings.

What information do I need to vote for a coffee shop?

You need the coffee shop’s name, city and country, Instagram handle and a short explanation of why you chose it. The explanation is limited to 50 words. Write from your own experience and don’t include your contact details or another person’s private information.

How are People’s Choice Coffee Awards winners chosen?

Winners are determined by valid public votes rather than judges or an industry panel. FLTR Magazine reviews entries, combines obvious name variations and removes duplicate, automated, fraudulent or suspicious submissions. Rankings are published after verification, but individual vote totals and voter comments aren’t made public.

What should I write in a coffee shop review?

Write the details another customer would want before visiting. Mention what you ordered, how the service worked and anything useful about seating, accessibility, noise or atmosphere. Keep the review accurate and based on your own visit. Two specific sentences are usually better than a long collection of generic compliments.

Can coffee shops ask their customers to vote?

Yes. Coffee shops can tell customers that voting is open and invite genuine supporters to take part. The People’s Choice Coffee Awards provides a free participation kit for this purpose. Shops shouldn’t submit votes for customers, tell them what to write or encourage duplicate, automated or fraudulent entries.