Woolly Bugger: Harbor Springs, Michigan
Any decent fly fisherman knows that a woolly bugger is a wet fly (that feels like it has the mass of a lead weight compared to a typical dry fly). It’s also the name of a little coffee shop in Harbor Springs, Michigan (and another location in Charlevoix, purportedly). The shop is fly fishing themed, with fishing quotes on the walls and other visual aides to bolster the case. It comes off a bit campy (ok, really campy), but otherwise the shop is cozy and workable, though pretty cramped.
Woolly Bugger roasts its own coffee (offsite, elsewhere in Harbor Springs) and the cappuccino I had was smooth and tasty and very mild. Mild well beyond Amante’s roasts, if that’s any indication. I’ll be near for a while so will go back for more visits and see if the subsequent shots are as mild. As a change, I rather liked it. I didn’t realize how inured I had become of the rocket booster roasts of Conscious, Kaladi, Unseen, etc. I could get used to a milder espresso, or at least get used to having the choice on any given day. At any rate, the coffee was well worth going back for.
The work space? That might be a different matter. It’ll do in a pinch (free wireless, of course), but for longer term working needs — i.e., reliably comfortable working space a day or two a week — Woolly Bugger isn’t going to be the choice because there is no elbow room. Then again, there isn’t any other choice in Harbor Springs, so good luck if the world brings you here for a month or two. Absolutely beautiful place of the country to visit and even stay, not the easiest place to be a traveling laptop zombie.
Downtown shop poll results
We forgot to post this when it appeared in April. Downtown Boulder Magazine posted the results of a poll (page 37 of the pdf) about the best downtown coffee shop (presumably from this list of 18 shops). (We posted during the poll’s run).
Here are the results (actual screenshot from the magazine pdf is below the fold, but we had the full results emailed to us), and I have to say I’m scratching my head on a couple of these:
1. The Cup (18%)
2. The Unseen Bean (15%)
3. Laughing Goat (10%)
4. Great Awakening (8%)
5. Tee and Cakes (7.5%)
6. Amante (7%)
7. Trident (6%)
I’m good with the top-3, but Great Awakening? Are you kidding? And Saxy’s or Sidney’s didn’t make the list? And while I like Tee and Cakes, Spruce Confections is roughly 346 times better. One of three explanations are possible: 1) all of 14 people responded; 2) Readers of Downtown Boulder mag are not representative of actual coffee shop denizens; 3) ballot-box stuffing. Either way, more grist for the mill that public polls like this are next to useless, which is exactly what one of our commenters noted on the post announcing the poll.
shop transactions
From the fact file and the rumor mill:
Sidney’s just changed hands, from Trish to wife-husband team Heidi and Matt.
Amante is up for sale. The rumor price we heard initially was $1.3M, but I’ve since heard something more like $700K. (Good luck with that. There aren’t that many wannabe euros here.)
Playgrounds (we never got around to posting a review) closed doors in late 2008, the owners trying to find somebody to buy it. The rumor price we’ve heard is absurdly low, so low I’m not even going to print it. The owners of the shop also owned the NoBo space and spent oodles on the build-out (obvious if you’ve been), and are offering to either sell the space or lease.
Best of Boulder? Um, yea….no
Once again the popularity contests come out and distort reality. And we love reality. We don’t love gimmicked phone-tree (email tree?) influenced “popularity” polls. So we shouldn’t be surprised that the Best of Boulder 2008 has — who else? — Vic’s as the best coffee shop in Boulder. Ug.
Vic’s, people? Can you possibly be serious? The only thing this proves is that Vic’s is the best at getting their friends, neighbors and relatives to vote. What does it take, an email address? Yeah, I’ve got five, and my uncle in Michigan has ten. Yeah, we just won best coffee shop blog.
The real deal with Vic’s is that they serve some of the worst coffee in Boulder (it is Allegro, also served by numerous other shops) and the flagship shop is dark, crowded and otherwise laid out in almost unworkable way. The socialite crowd needed a nearby see-and-be-seen hang and Vic’s was all the neighborhood has to offer, so it became so by default. It decidedly did not become so because it is a good coffee shop. So Vic’s won “best coffee shop.” It ain’t the coffee, it ain’t because it’s the best shop, it’s because somehow the 30-somethings single ants collect there looking for honey.
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.
Le Tour 2007
Amante has been hyping it up for weeks and finally it’s upon us, the Tour De France 2007. Both Amante and Saxy’s are showing the live cast and replays throughout the day. With 20 stages playing from the 7th to the 29th of July, there’ll be plenty of opportunity to get your cycling fix.
So if you’re looking for a good distraction and what’s sure to be another entertaining Tour, hit one of these favorites.
they made me do it
I didn’t want to work at Amante this morning. I still don’t. I can’t handle the eurostyle, or the coffee. Or the soccer jersey uniforms. Or the noise. Or that I’m the only non-Mac. And I didn’t have an iPhone. Europe: nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.
Speaking of Joe’s (were we? oh, yes we were) I stopped in the other day just to smell out the scene. I didn’t even have my laptop, just some time to kill and a desire to find a coffee shop east of 17th St. What’s to like: they’re in to it, which means they probably pay attention to the making of the coffee, which many of us have realized is probably even more important than the roast and beans. You can get good pours even out of Allegro coffee and bad pours out of CC. But that leads us to the bad. My position still hasn’t wavered: on average Allegro coffee is the worst you can find in high use in Boulder. And that’s what Joe’s serves. Proudly. So hey Joe: switch to CC or whatever the Goat serves and you’re going to get my full vote.
Surprise… Amante: an attractive alternative
Overcome the barriers of cramped appearance and the over-the-top Eurotrash facade and you’ll find Amante downtown a surprisingly pleasant place to work.
Amante scores well on the essentials: great coffee, solid wireless service, and decent outlet distribution. Plus, being on the classier side of things (on the surface at least), Amante gets a good flow of the Boulder beautiful.
Push a few of the tables along the bench together and you can get the entire staff within scone-sharing range. And the seats are possibly the most comfortable in the entire c-shop scene.
Now for the drawbacks…
