admin | Coffee, It's a Helluva Drug

is COVID killing quality coffee?

New article from Bloomberg Business with the attention-getting headline “Say Goodbye to Your Local Coffee Shop in America’s Great Coffee Shake-Up“

I’d like to find the headline writer responsible for this and box their ears, but as for the article itself….. well, I’m afraid it’s all too true. The explosion in independent cafes has been a godsend for the coffee snob, but the reality is there that pre-COVID we had a lot of places that didn’t focus enough on quality and/or had shaky business models. My great fear is that the pandemic, rather than a needed correction to weed out the weaker shops, will cut far too close to the bone and wipe out the good places as well. And helping Starbucks and Dunkin is just insult to injury.

Please support your local purveyor of quality coffee, chances are they need it. Buy takeout, frequent their outdoor seating areas, order beans on line, get some merch, pick up some gift cards and give them to friends.

changes in a time of constant change

Many of us are finding our favorite coffee shops closed, sometimes with some notice, sometimes with none, as retail as a whole continues to suffer from the intense shocks of our COVID age. A couple recent moves:

Dolcezza, the DC area gelato and coffee purveyor, has decided to close all its shops over the next month, except for the coffee bar at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum (which is temporarily closed), and two outlets in Fairfax, VA. The company’s focus seems to be shifting to wholesale sales of its gelato. A big loss.

Another DC chain, Peregrine, closed its outlet on 14th Street NW in late June, saying it was due to increasing rents. This strip of retail and restaurants has been one of the hottest stretches of commercial retail in the area over the past 5 years, with rising rents crowding out many independent and local businesses in favor of high end chains. They continue to operate two other outlets in DC and a pop-up in The Pug, a bar along the H Street NE corridor.

In moves not related to COVID pressures, Milwaukee’s Kickapoo Coffee has completed its name change. Say hello to Wonderstate Coffee. And DC cafe and bar Colony Club has changed its name to Doubles. The name change reflects a move away from negative associations with colonialism, particularly given the gentrification in its Park View neighborhood, and ties to their in-house ping pong table.

Julius

I apologized the other day for the lack of posting. Those of you who know me IRL and/or follow my personal social media accounts know that my Dad was in ill health this summer and passed away recently.

My Dad was the most devoted reader of this little folly. He always took an interest in my coffee adventures, would carefully cut out and mail to me articles about coffee from his beloved daily paper, some of which I shamelessly lifted. He always wanted to know if I had found a new place for coffee and how good it was, how I was making it at home. Even in his last days, when I would visit he’d rather talk about where I had gone for coffee that day than his health situation. I’m pretty sure he was happier for me to find a good coffee place had opened near his suburban home than I was.

I’d like to share a story about him. One time he took me to Fuddruckers (do they still exist?). I remembered this happening with my brothers when we were kids, but neither of them shared the recollection so perhaps it was just me. Anyway, as he placed the order he had me/us find a table. He sat down, and after a while we hear “JULIUS, YOUR ORDER IS READY.” Dad, whose name was Jonathan (he always went by Jon), gets up with just a hint of a smile on his face and saunters over to pick up our food. Found out from him later it was a tribute to Dr. J.

Dad spent his last days in the hospital in Philadelphia, and my brothers and I were fortunate enough to spend them with him. On my walk from the hotel to the hospital one morning I stopped for a coffee, and when it was time to leave my name I knew what to do.

Salt & Pepper Diner Song of the Day for 9/25

Call this song overwrought, self-important, ponderous, whatever. Don’t care. Tonight, we’re pounding this Madchester banger 21x in a row, yeah.

review: Lost Dog Coffee & Tea

Sorry I haven’t posted in a long time. Eventually I’ll get to why, but for now it’s nice to be back.

This review has swerved a bit in my mind before I sat down to write it. Loved it. Wasn’t so sure. Ready to go thumbs down. Thought some more. Decided I really do love it. Let me explain.

This morning for the first time I passed through Shepherdstown, WV, a lovely, historic college town on the banks of the Potomac River about 90 minutes away from DC. From my usual internet search for coffee in a new place, the clear option was a cafe which trades under the name Lost Dog Coffee and Tea Fine Arts Emporium. Or maybe it’s Lost Dog Fine Arts Coffee & Tea. Or Lost Dog Coffee Espresso and Tea Arts Emporium. Not sure which is correct, maybe they all are, and that’s just fine.

Salt & Pepper Diner Song of the Day for 6/26

With so much unhappy stuff dominating our world today, I’m choosing to listen 21x in a row to something happy (even if the lyrics aren’t).

what a bargain!

My Father’s Day gift this year (I was asked what I wanted) was an on-line home espresso class, offered by Breville in conjunction with Onyx Coffee Lab. My session was yesterday.

I’ve taken classes before at Counter Culture and Vigilante, but it had been a while and this offer was too good to be true.

one area cafe I definitely don’t need to visit

File under “Cafe Owners Behaving Badly.”

I have no patience with cafe operators (or any business owners, for that matter) who don’t pay their staff on time. That has to be priority one. But if his former employees are to be believed, Rob Shelton of Alexandria, VA’s Killer E.S.P. also treats his staff inappropriately, and may or may not have used the business’ social media accounts to push conspiracy theories and views some consider racist.

Shelton claims someone else must have made the offending posts, though staff point out the language matches things he’s said in person and on his own accounts. He’s also accused of unwanted physical contact and comments about staff’s physical appearance.

Details can be found at Washingtonian magazine.

coffee world faces its own reckoning

As the US, and now the world, is forced to face up to the injustices and structural racism which confront black people on a daily basis, it’s no surprise that the coffee industry is dealing with shocks of its own. The past week in particular has caught up key players in the specialty coffee world, as well as the gargantuan icon of the global coffee industry. Let’s weed through a few examples.