Pony Espresso Café

I was excited to hear about this place when it was being built/​opening up. But it was a let down.
When we walked inside, I quickly took note of the sterile, corporate style décor and overall appearance of the shop. It has a feeling of blandness and un-​warmth. By the way, I wouldn’t even say this about Starbucks. I looked inside the pastry box and also quickly appraised that nothing special was in there. Everything looked dried out, small, and worse than grocery store pastries. But my son really wanted a drink and was not really liking my requests to go somewhere else, so I walked up to the counter resolved to give it a chance. The employees were nice enough; nothing bad to say there. I ordered a latte and a croissant. Both were below average. The quality seemed shoddy, worse than what you could get at the Minute Market. Now I do not know exactly what was wrong with my son’s hot chocolate, but I do know he wouldn’t finish it. Most of what we ordered ended up in the trash.
I would only go here again if I were with others who wanted to go. And I would only order a plain drip coffee. Two stars because I would. My one stars are reserved for boycotts.
³⁄₁₀. Way too many other good coffee shops in Ashland to compete with.
By the way, the Pony Espresso in Jacksonville is completely different. Very cute, very warm, well-​made drinks. Don’t know what happened here. I suspect it has something to do with sharing a building with a bank. They might have rules or something about décor and maybe Pony just wanted to cash in on the foot traffic without having to put too much money and love into this location.
All in all, I totally agree with Michelle, Krystle, and Liam in the reviews below.

What are you doing at Starbucks or Mix??? Try something new in Ashland! This place has a lovely, gently funky and comfortable vibe. The coffee drinks are great, there’s a nice food menu, etc. I’ll keep this short so I can enjoy my latte before it gets cold. Do yourself a favor and walk an extra block to Pony Espresso. It’s close to downtown but feels like a well-​kept secret!

Worst iced coffee of my life. I couldn’t drink it, the burned flavor was too strong. This was half way through a ten hour drive and the temperature outside was high nineties, so I was very motivated, I just couldn’t stomach it.
Vibe is strange, bad chainy, like an investment bankers dream of a coffee shop.

Not the friendliest people but super good drinks and great new location.
Loved my mudslide blended drink.
Great place to enjoy coffee and hang out and people watch.

Lovely Staff ! Swing by this Coffee shop in its clean, cool and centrally located new addition. I highly recommend the homemade Granola, it is simply scrumptious and the some ! Well I cannot comment on the coffee as I am a Tea drinker myself, I will say that I do thoroughly enjoy iced tea varieties offered here.

I am a coffee house nut with extremely high measures for the quality of the coffee! This place not only has a very cool environment but it has fantastic coffee and this comes from a complete coffee snob.
Some previous reviewers comment on the fact that it’s in a bank; another states it is very Starbucky. The latter is so misleading. It IS not like Starbucks and the location being in a bank is a novel use of sharing space. The two are well divided within the space, and the bank is not like a Wells Fargo or other institutional bank environment.
The environment is modern and comfortable with many choices of seating areas that are actually COMFORTABLE to sit at for long periods of time! And, lovely options for sitting outside… what more can I say!

We weren’t impressed with the coffee.
:/​We enjoy the Jacksonville location and we’re hoping some of it leaked to this location.
It is odd to have it in a bank… Sort of kills the vibe. The outside seating area is much nicer.
BUT we had good customer service and they fixed a drink that wasn’t good and we’re super nice about it. With all the other coffee locations in Ashland though, we probably wouldn’t choose to stop here again.

Love this place! A lot of the other coffee shops in town can get so packed, but because this coffee shop shares space with the bank, there is always seating. I wish there were more outlets (or at least a power strip at every outlet). Also, the big wooden tables against the windows move a lot, which isn’t great when you’re sharing the table with strangers. Maybe if they were bolted into the wall it’d be less embarrassing to move around while sitting there. My final complaint is that the chai tastes very syrupy, but that might just be the brand they use. Anyway, those are my only complaints, but they’re not bothersome enough for me to give fewer than 5 stars. There are big, comfy couches that are nice when you’re tired of sitting on hard chairs. The food is delicious, they offer lots of vegetarian options, and I’m a fan of ther espresso. Haven’t tried their coffee yet. I LOVE that they offer multiple milk alternatives (e.g., soy, hemp, almond, coconut, others??). I also like how open the environment is, with lots of windows for sunlight and people watching. The manager (Katie? Catherine? Caitlin?) is super nice and helpful. I haven’t had any bad experiences with the baristas. Finally, if you’re concerned about downtown parking, this place has ample parking behind the building without time limits.
I definitely recommend this place, and I have! Now a bunch of my classmates go here!

Unfortunately, i cannot wrap my head around how anyone could open a coffee shop in Ashland which has many really excellent places to get a great cuppa joe and NOT serve excellent coffee. I went in today for the first time and ordered an americano and it just tasted terrible, burnt and bitter and just not up to par.
The atmosphere is very starbucky and there is a bank that shares the same foyer, i like the lighting and the woman that helped me was sweet but it just can’t see myself returning.

The Pony Expresso, long popular in Jacksonville, has opened a branch in Ashland.
I ate the chicken-​cashew sandwich on focaccia bread. The filling was chicken salad with cashews, tomato, lettuce and onion. The bread was mass produced and bland. A dill pickle quarter was included. Based on the price and quality of my sandwich, Pony Expresso may have a hard time competing with Café 116 (just about across the street) and other coffee houses in Ashland.
The café serves Alann Brothers coffee.

5stars for knowing how to bust out a cubano… Less one star for no affogados.
The owner, Chris, is a super chill nice guy and his wife is a sweetheart. Their younger employee looked at me cross eyed when I asked for a cubano, but Chris jumped in and took the opportunity to teach this lil whipper snapper barista how it’s done.
Free wi-​if and a great ambiance both with inside and outside seating. Love popping in here for a quick hit of caffeine while out riding the country roads on my two wheels.
On my way out I noticed beer was served as well… Hot damn… Just found another reason to come back!