"You date a girl and find out later/She smells just like a percolator."

With lyrics like that, it's no wonder that Ol' Blue Eyes, Frank Sinatra, isn't usually remembered for The Coffee Song, a ditty which is pretty patronising about the people of Brazil. While the ode is a shonky mishmash of dire puns and cultural slurs, it makes an unwittingly prescient point: "Coffee beans grow by the billions/So they've got to find those extra cups to fill."

For several years the world coffee market has been glutted with cheap, rather nasty beans (many people blame the Vietnamese), though you wouldn't know it by the prices charged for your average frothaccino. And the coffee shop market appears more or less saturated.

So what's the answer? Diversify into food, of course. So while Combibos is technically a family-owned coffee shop, it's clearly a cafe in the wider sense. Perhaps this is why, on a rainy Tuesday, people were scampering into Combibos while two doors away, Caffe Nero, offering little more than muffins and crisps, seemed the poor relation.

WHAT'S IT LIKE? In a word: brown - furniture and walls. The lyrics to Coffee Song were fixed to the walls, along with some piffle by Green Day and a Bob Dylan track I was too shortsighted to make out. All the comfy leather seats were occupied, so I perched on a stool. The music was audible but soft, so as not to be intrusive - a good thing, as the lacklustre cover version of Big Yellow Taxi, not the Joni Mitchell original, was being played.

WHAT DID YOU HAVE? Breakfasts are served until 11am each day. This is one of the few places in Oxford you can get what Combibos calls a 'stack' of pancakes and syrup, which sounded tempting, but I was lured by the Special Breakfast: scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns and toast, plus either tea or coffee, for a budget-worthy £3.99.

WHAT DID YOU THINK? The coffee (an Americano) was brought to my table - a nice touch. It was a decent brew and the large cup was practically a mug. Combibos uses 100 per cent Fairtrade arabica beans, incidentally.

Full English and veggie full English breakfasts are also available, so I wasn't prepared for the size of the portion that arrived about 10 minutes later: three fat rashers of bacon, a pile of egg, four pieces of wholemeal toast and two hash browns. My one quibble was that the bacon was a smidgin salty.

GIMME MORE FACTS: It's open from 7am-6.30pm, and on Sunday from 9am-6pm. There's free wi-fi, and smoking tables outside. The food is mainly sandwiches, soups, pastries and cakes. There's also a loyalty card scheme, which applies to drinks.

VERDICT: The location may be dingy, but the shop is rather more inviting, and better value, than the 'gang of four': Starbucks, Caffe Nero, Costa Coffee and Coffee Republic.

THE BILL: Special breakfast £3.99; ham baguette and crisps deal £2.99; TOTAL: £6.98