The Village Coffee & Co is a cafe at 62 Cambridge Ave in Ashhurst, the small village on Palmerston North's northeastern edge, and it carries a 4.8 rating on Google.
A good cafe shows itself in small ways: beans roasted within the last few weeks, a grinder dialled in each morning, milk stretched by hand so the flat white actually tastes of the coffee. In a village, the cafe tends to be the meeting place as much as the coffee stop — a spot where regulars' orders are half-known by the time they reach the counter and the cabinet baking goes early. The reliable tip is to follow the locals: busiest at breakfast and after the school run, quietest mid-morning, when there is time for a proper seat.
For Ashhurst locals and anyone passing through towards the gorge or the ranges, it is the village's natural coffee stop.