it just works
an ode to functional things in a dysfunctional world
Hello and welcome to clipboard, a weekly dispatch about doing your best. This week, the quiet magic of a high volume cafe.
This week, I saw a tweet that was reposted to an instagram story that was probably served to me in an email newsletter, along the lines of “they elected a new pope in a day but it takes a week to approve the social media calendar.” It hit deeply at something I’ve certainly been feeling for a while.
When you exist in the world in 2025, as all of us do, you’re confronted with things that don’t work all the time. Your phone starts to feel old quicker than it used to, the plane is delayed, the laws of physics governing the world economy are being upended, the new Outlook is missing the features you need from the old one.
When the rest of the world feels like it’s forgetting that we already had those conversations and solved those problems years ago, there’s something so comforting, and refreshing, about something that works exactly as intended, all the time.
Enter, Rosslyn Coffee.
Rosslyn is an independent chain of coffee shops based entirely in The City of London. Each outpost serves almost exclusively takeaway coffees, maybe a pastry every once in a while, to a clientele of people who mainly work in finance. With that crowd, time is money, and anything short of efficient perfection means they’ll take their caffeine addiction elsewhere.
Rosslyn Queen Victoria Street is in between the tube station and my office, and so I am there every morning, picking up a long black before I clock in at the email factory. Rosslyn serves proper specialty coffee, with a copy of the FT hanging on the wall so that you can get the latest markets headlines while you wait. But you don’t have to wait long, because this place has turned serving coffee at pace into a fine art.
When I wrote about the depressed price of coffee in New Zealand for Metro a few years ago, something that came up time and time again when speaking to coffee professionals was how much skill goes into a good cup of coffee.
Every flat white and latte is made to order, with a specific knack to knowing how to balance the many variables that go into a cup: how much coffee, ground at what texture, with how much milk at what temperature and consistency. That’s not even getting into the farmer and roaster who got the bean to the point that you’d want to make a drink out of it. And yet, we often think of a coffee as something akin to a can of Coke, poured on an assembly line, and want it to be priced accordingly.
So coffee is hard to make, and when done poorly, I’m of the view that it’s not worth drinking. Which makes it all the more impressive that Rosslyn, which always has a line out the door, manages to get everyone the coffee they ordered, at a high quality, every single time.
I’ve been going to Rosslyn for nearly two months now, five days a week, and every time the coffee has been fantastic. They’ve even started to remember my name, a huge get for me as someone who loves to be a regular.
It’s really nice to have a something consistent and reliable every morning, and so impressive to watch the crew behind the wall of coffee machines churn out fantastic brews over and over again.
clips
I discovered Rhodes Wood, a classic tailoring shop in Harrogate, through its delightful TikTok. This week they loaded up a series of vintage Mickey Mouse watches on their online site, and if I were in the market at the moment, I would be picking up this Seiko Tank.
The OG anti-consumerism lifestyle newsletter, Blackbird Spyplane, turns 5.
Also in Substackery: Feed Me investigates what influences men to buy things.
This week in freaky New Balances: I saw a pair of the snoafers in the flesh last weekend and they are kind of cool IRL? Also, I like these snappily named U2010AGYs.
It came to my attention this week that there are still people who haven’t watched Conclave, even after it became real life. If you need something to watch, make it this! A perfectly formed film that isn’t too thinky or emotional.
Shot: The new Arsenal Heritage collection of merch, which is quite cool (if you don’t know about Classic Football Shirts). Chaser: this excellent TikTok imagining a Drive to Survive documentary about the Arsenal merch team.
I have been wearing my Idea “I don’t work here” hat every day since I got it. If you need a cool hat, there is an excellent hat from Idea for you. The next one on my list is either “Kid’s Menu” or “Private Label.”
I bought a book from Penguin’s 90th anniversary archive collection, and it immediately made me feel like a cool, cultured, interesting person. Great graphic design that is perfect for putting just off center in your coffee shop Instagram story. The writing is pretty good too!
That’s all for clipboard this week, thanks for reading! If you enjoy this newsletter, I would love it if you could share it with your friend who stopped saying “split the G,” but still orders a Guinness for the pic. Clipboard will be back next week with more good stuff, see you then!