Well, it’s been a fun and fattening year, during which I’ve really gotten to know the good, the bad and the ugly (literally) of the Newtown cafe scene, and beyond! So let’s look at the stats.
I’ve visited 138 cafes over the past year. I’m pretty proud of that effort. Overall, this is what I found:
| Coffee | Banana Bread |
| 34% ☺ | 33% ☺ |
| 41% 😐 | 38% 😐 |
| 25% ☹ | 29% ☹ |
47 of those cafes were specifically in Newtown, bearing in mind the official Newtown border is stupid (case in point: South End). Looks like Newtown is ever-so-slightly better than average for coffee (though not as much as I thought) and much worse for banana bread! You should be ashamed of yourself, Newtown. Booo 👎
| Newtown Coffee | Newtown Banana Bread |
| 36% ☺ | 30% ☺ |
| 36% 😐 | 32% 😐 |
| 28% ☹ | 38% ☹ |
Comparing Newtown with the “Rest of Sydney” turned out to be complicated, since the borders between Newtown and other Inner West suburbs are irregular and often irrelevant… so I figured a better comparison would be Inner West vs Rest of Sydney. Let’s take a look…
| Inner West Coffee | Rest of Sydney Coffee | Inner West Banana Bread | Rest of Sydney Banana Bread |
| 35% ☺ | 35% ☺ | 35% ☺ | 27% ☺ |
| 39% 😐 | 44% 😐 | 36% 😐 | 42% 😐 |
| 26% ☹ | 21% ☹ | 29% ☹ | 31% ☹ |
Well that’s depressing: the coffee is actually better in the Rest of Sydney than in the Inner West.
It’s actually pretty amazing that you have almost an exactly 1/3 chance of getting a great coffee no matter where you go. For both coffee and banana bread, you’re more likely to get a safe, predictable 0 in the Rest of Sydney. The banana bread is slightly better in the Inner West in general, but you’re more likely to get a bad banana bread in Newtown than anywhere else in Sydney!
So much for statistical analysis, this is all fairly inconclusive. I either need more data, or I need to subconsciously stop evenly dividing everything into ☺, 😐 or ☹. But that’s the whole fun of it! Onwards, fellow pursuers, the pursuit continues!