Category: coffee shops & reviews

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.

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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.

update: Car Wash Coffee

update 5/30/2021: permanently closed

It’s been a little over a year since my friend Rachel and I visited Car Wash Coffee in Kensington, MD. I just added the coveted Asterisk of Quality (I just made that up, I think it has legs) to Car Wash in my guide, because in the times I’ve visited since it’s improved.

  • baristas performing at a higher level, including milk art
  • more variety and quality in food, both to eat in and to go
  • more use of their logo, car-themed decorations, and running videos of a car wash in operation on the big-ass tv, all of which serves to tie the place better to the its namesake car wash

Still a giant pain to get in and out of when there’s traffic, but it’s always got a good crowd and is definitely the kind of place its town needed. Wishing them continued success.

mini-review: Colony Club

I ran out of beans for making coffee at home over the Thanksgiving holiday. The last batch I went through was the seasonal Otoño blend from Intelligentsia, a big, bold monster with tons of flavor that produced a lot of crema. This time I wanted to get something from Heart, a terrific roaster from Portland, OR, which has become my favorite.

Not a lot of shops in the DC area carry Heart’s beans, but I knew of one which I had been meaning to try out, Colony Club in the Park View neighborhood in Washington. I had stopped in once before, but if was just after 5pm, when they stop serving coffee for the day and switch over completely to being a bar.

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mea culpa

Let me apologize that I haven’t posted in a while. I started a new full-time job in September and it’s been keeping me very busy; other than missing my previous mornings of leisure, I absolutely love it.

But the title of this post isn’t for ghosting my blogging duties, but for a bit of foolishness on my part which kept me from enjoying great coffee. Let me explain.

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this may or may not be good

One of my favorite coffee places is Maglianero, in Burlington, VT, as I’ve discussed before. I manage to get there a couple weeks a year, and it feels special to me. So imagine my response to see this yesterday on the Instagram:

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tfw……

….you discover good coffee less than a block away from your office.

source: Simpsonsworld.com, via giphy.com

Somehow or another, for the past two years I totally missed that there was decent coffee available near my work. The bar at DC’s Hotel Hive is a trendy spot for drinks, but I had not realized it also has an espresso maker going from 7am onward every day. Featuring beans from Vigilante Coffee, it’s admittedly not the best-made cup ever. However, the proximity and the quality of the beans carry the day.

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