Ok, now I’ve been to Cannon Mine
Lost amid the 634 dingy Mexican joints along S. Public Road (main street downtown Lafayette) is Cannon Mine Coffee. I’ll start off with the positive: I’m definitely going back there. The negative: I’m going back on a weekday when I expect they’ll have somebody a little more experienced and faster working the espresso machine (I visited today: lazy Saturday afternoon on Thanksgiving weekend).
I haven’t worked from there yet, but the inside of the shop is something I’ve been looking a long time for in Boulder shops (and still haven’t found). It’s the kind of wood-heavy, old building look, with worn hardwood floors and comfortable wood tables and leather easy chairs, that you seem to find in the best coffee shops outside of Boulder. That old wood is like comfort food, and at Cannon Mine they’ve mixed the comfy chairs with high and low wooden tables in a way that feels perfect.
The major downside I foresee is their choice of roasters (Boulder Organic). It’s just not an impressive choice and while I have serviceable coffees at Espressoria and Tee & Cakes (other shops that serve Boulder Organic), they are not the awesome coffee you get at Ozo, The Cup, and Sidney’s. Upside is they do carry Bhakti Chai, so that’s a positive choice.
Future visits will complete the picture, but I look forward to heading back. 210 S. Public Rd.
Hipster coffeehouse discovered on the other side of the world
Dateline: Melbourne, early Sunday afternoon
Rain to beat the band stymied my sunny Mt. Arapiles sport climbing aspirations. Stuck in Melbourne between expensive hotel check-out and inexpensive hotel check-in, I wandered the lanes in pouring rain looking for someplace not overcrowded, not nicotine stained and, above all, open. (Why on Earth should any coffee shop be closed on Sunday?)
I had just reached desperation and soak-through when I passed an open warehouse door with no sign on Little Lonsdale street. A peripheral glimpse gleaned, in Euro-slick Melbourne, an unlikely combination of impressions: 1) a large room sparsely filled with shabby second-hand furniture; 2) a cafe bar covered with vintage linoleum; and through the back, 3) a cavernous whitewashed warehouse containing nothing but a brown fixie hovering a few feet off the concrete floor suspended from the ceiling by wires.
Huh?… Two steps later I spun about and peered through the doorway to confirm, in fact, I had discovered a wormhole through space and time to Park Slope, Brooklyn. It’s called 1000 £ Bend (link).
On a side note, the coffee in this town is universally stellar, no bitter, chalky gutter mud can be found, not even in crappy chinese restaurants. The cap I had at 1000 £ didn’t stand out among Melbourne’s finest, though it’s hardly worth mentioning, it’s better than 85% of the so-called boutique coffee I’ve tasted in the U.S.
To the facts:
1. A red headed Brit having a bright pink cupcake with her cup of tea while lounging in a avocado paisley easy chair
2. Hipster couple humming along to 80’s classic, Died in Your Arms Tonight while sorting art photos on their Apple
3. 60’s vintage racy Ann Margret movie poster for Kitten With A Whip
4. 70’s vintage coin operated cigarette vending machine
5. 80’s vintage music (of course)
6. Goldfish tank R.I.P. list: Jeff Goldblum 27-10-07; Rhianna 2-11-09
7. A bike art gallery and screening room (it appears to be Melbourne’s ground zero for the upcoming BFF, oh, and the hanging fixie is made of wood probably Australian gum tree)
8. Location: 365 Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, open every day, good food and great coffee, free wifi
Brilliant!
Of course if 1000 £ was actually in Brooklyn we’d all cry: derivative! boring! the world needs another hipster coffeeshop like I need a hole in the head! But here in Melbourne it restored my faith in humankind (or at least the world-wide reach of hipsterdom). And, compared to actual Brooklyn, 1000 £ is uncramped, unpretentious and the coffee doesn’t suck.
All along 14th St
It’s kind of a long street, but along its entire stretch there are only two coffee shops, and they’re next door to each other in the block between Pearl and Walnut: Belvedere Belgian Chocolate Shop (website) and Tee & Cakes. We’ve written about Tee & Cakes a few times, but have missed Belvedere, both in its new location here and its previous location at the same latitude but on 15th. Belvedere we’ve probably ignored because it sells itself primarily as a chocolate shop that also sells espresso. In a city saturated with good coffee, that doesn’t work well. People are spoiled and know that a shop doing espresso as an add-on is very rarely worth the trouble.
I decided to confirm or refute directly. I mean, they’re right next door to each other, how hard can the comparison be? So I finally visited Belvedere for the first time and T&C for the 20th. Results? It’s like the over-run clip of Dennis Green flipping out about losing to da Bears.
Yep, Belvedere is what I thought they were. They serve Novo Coffee (out of Denver), but not well. Wasn’t the worst coffee I’ve ever had, certainly wasn’t the best, somewhere just about slightly below average. They shop isn’t something you want to work from frequently. You can do it in a pinch, but it just doesn’t feel right as a work space. And you’re going to be relying on Pearl St. Mall wireless because they don’t have their own.
Tee & Cakes is also who I thought they were, mostly because I’ve been there a bunch. I don’t like their choice of roasters (Boulder Organic, just a half step above Allegro), but they make it well enough (read: better than Espressoria pulls it off). My bone to pick today is how they confuse — like many — latte with cappuccino. Here’s my rule of thumb: a cappuccino is espresso with a bit of milk flavoring. A latte is hot milk with some coffee flavor. You should NEVER be searching for the coffee in the cappuccino because the coffee should be by far the dominant component. For most coffee shops, even most in Boulder, when you order a cap you’re still getting a latte, and there is very, very little difference between how a shop makes the two. There should be a huge difference, but for most there is not.
Rant aside, we still love T&C’s cupcake line up and the place is worth visiting for that alone. Belvedere? Go there if you need chocolate.
Brewing Mkt out on 95th
I had posted some reviews and news about The Curious Cup, most recent being that they died. While praising CC, I was basting their 95th and Arapahoe competition, Brewing Market. Well Brewing Market is still in business and CC isn’t, so I decided that I should probably suck it up and go work there for an afternoon.
Since I now live out that direction and I don’t want to come into Boulder every day, I was hoping to be pleasantly surprised by Brewing Market on 95th so I could use it as a reliable satellite office. I was and I wasn’t.
First the good: the layout I like. Tables on one end with ample elbow room between them and a mix of table sizes. On the other end is a U-shaped couch and plush chair area that works well. You can work there, but it is more a comfortable meeting spot, and there were two different groups of people having coffee meetings while I was there. The entire east wall and much of the north wall is floor-to-ceiling glass which I think is a good orientation since you don’t get afternoon sun barreling down on you and your laptop.
Now the bad: Brewing Market is still Brewing Market. The coffee sucks and the chai is even worse (hard to think that’s possible, but I confirmed that it is). The internet policy is that you get access for two hours per order. I can see the business logic behind it, but it’s shortsighted. Unless your shop is packed to the gills with laptop zombies all day (ie., Saxy’s), you don’t need to worry about the occasional person who orders one drink and works for 6 hours. To the rest of the people it’s a turn-off.
It’s too bad that CC went down the loser and Brewing Market stayed around the winner, but for a workspace it is decent. Just don’t plan on loving your coffee. If you live in the vicinity, it works.
