The Aardvark Blog

Tony Good: Some Memories
2/05/2022

This morning I opened my email to get a notification from a mutual friend of the recent passing of Tony Good, long-time friend of Aardvark, coffee supplier extraordinaire and perhaps the single most positive person it has been my good fortune to meet during my life.

I first met Tony through Edward who'd met him at a local Rotary meeting. Tony was then a youngster in his early seventies and he persuaded Edward that we should all go into business together selling coffee by mail order. This was one of several get rich quick schemes that we tried out in our early days, but from the ashes of Aardvark Coffees came the much more enduring Aardvark Café which customers continue to enjoy.

There is simply no question that without Tony we simply would not have been in a position to start a Café as neither Edward nor I had any experience at all of catering. Tony found the suppliers - including Trumpers Teas which we still use - worked out the simple food menu and pointed us in the right direction for the equipment we would need. After he sold us his half of the partnership he continued to be involved in the Café and supplied us with our cafetiere coffee until the end.

I have been lucky enough to meet all sorts of people during my lifetime, but I am yet to meet any-one who had a 10th of Tony's get up and go. In latter years when I called him our talks would often start by him detailing a long list of ailments which were then afflicting him. He did so without even a shred of self-pity and with charismatic good humour. That is not to say that he made light of any of the difficulties he faced in his life, rather that he was never prepared to let them get him down.

With his passing the world has lost a beacon of light, and I have lost a good friend and colleague.