a New York paper does Boulder
The New York Times came to town and found out that people in Boulder are f’d up.
In coffee news, they picked Amante to showcase cap art.
on machines and customer service
Radda is the newish Italian place abutting Ideal to the west. It took over the space from that pseudo-Mexican place that had the rockin tamales night on Mondays. It’s not a space for working but is a pretty damn good place for eating. Food is excellent and cheap for the quality and ambiance. But we’re here to talk about the coffee, aren’t we? The spouse and I were eating Sunday brunch at the bar, sitting within feet of the espresso boy. He made two excellent coffees for us and I was thinking something like, “That Illy must be damn good coffee because that’s one of the best cappuccinos I’ve had in Boulder.” But then we got a second. Later I found out we were both thinking the same thing: ‘bitter and sour.’ And: ‘why was the coffee so good the first time and so bad the second, just minutes after the first, made by the same bushy-haired import?’
When I asked around I got the answer: cheap machine = inconsistent coffee. When the coffee company (Illy) gives you the machine maybe you should say no and actually spend some dough on something worth having in your joint.
Which brings me to customer service. Why bother having a coffee shop if you’re not nice? Ah, nevermind. One of us just talked about it a coupla days ago so why beat a dead horse?
The Cup still hasn’t figured out customer service….
We’ve written before about those who own The Cup (category check) and who live behind the counter and who aren’t really people people and who should hire people to do all their public facing. We’ve made this recommendation before. Yes we have. But one of us was once again put off a few days ago by the … well, let’s just say aggressive, clueless and inappropriate … reaction (s)he got to an innocent, tepid question. The Cup serves great coffee (we mention Conscious Coffees so much it’s getting boring, but nobody around the Denver metro area comes close to touching their quality) and has knock-out baristas (that’s Mark for you — nobody serves his coffee without his intent training). But the surly, grumpy tude from the owners is gettin’ old.
Compare to Trish at Sidney’s, whom every coffee shop owner should be emulating. That girl oughta be running for office and kissin’ babies every day.
Tee & Cakes
Basically Cafe M without the shakes and with better pastries. The place has a good work area, solid internet, a respectable coffee and tea selection, and a fantastic assortment of pastries. As one poster to this blog will tell you – the chocolate croissant is delish. But overall, it’s really no change from Cafe M. Not that that’s a bad thing. Cafe M was great and we were bummed to see it go.
