Moscow Cafe Crawl

The Argonaut today has a smattering of quotes about coffee around town. I’ve added my own comments.

My guilty pleasure is a hazelnut latte from One World Café. The foam is amazing, and if you’re lucky, you get a good barista who creates some art on the top.
The coffee flavor is incomparable to any other place you can get a latte in Moscow (and I have tried pretty much everywhere as I am openly a coffee addict).
Besides, they have doors hanging from the ceiling and confusing rope and neon-light art. Thought-provoking atmosphere and caffeine fix in style?
Count me in.
— Sydney Boyd

One World’s coffee really does have a unique flavor. A little more of an acidic bite (which isn’t a bad thing at all), but not too dark or bitter. Many of the baristas are quite good. Unfortunately my provoked thoughts are often interrupted by the indie-rock and such being played on the stereo. Sometimes it’s good, but the last few times I’ve been there, they have been playing Björk much too loud…

Aside from my love for Chai tea or Earl Grey lattes, Bucer’s Cuban café con leche is amazing and by far my favorite hot drink in Moscow.
Their café con leche is the closest thing I can find in Idaho to the caramelized sugar sweet taste belonging only to the café con leches in Spain.
— Christina Navarro

Oh yes! Bucer’s Cuban coffee is THE primo coffee drink in town. I think more people are beginning to realize this.

My favorite coffee shop in Moscow is Sister’s Brew Coffee House on Main Street.
The coffee is good, but it is all about the mood they set.
The walls are an earthy burnt orange color and there are comfy chairs and loveseats to sit in and enjoy a warm drink.
Two in-house computers and wireless Internet make this a popular homework spot for students looking for a relaxing place to get things done.
For the fall, the shop is decorated, giving the already warm feel a little bit of harvest-time feel.
The coffee is served in large mugs, like the coffee house on NBC’s “Friends” and they bring it to customers, which is good for anyone too comfortable to get up and get it.
— Jason Hess

Sister’s Brew has really done a good job making a cozy place to come and study. My wife really likes all the comfy chairs and couches. We were there last night and the place was packed. Nice and warm, the drinks were good, and they DO bring them out to you. Super!

For anyone who wants to chat over some coffee, listen to some live Jazz on the weekends, or have some privacy in the smoker’s room, Bucer’s is the place.
The Culatto con leche or Cubanos are two of your best bets now that the cold weather is here. And they have an excellent selection of novels, plays and poetry at low prices.
— Alfredo Barnaby

Oh! There’s the Cuban coffee again! Consistent music schedule there too. Jazz is more fun to play than to listen to though…

One World Café does the job of combing a thoughtful, comfortable atmosphere and exceptional coffee and food as well as any other place in town.
What makes the place stand out to me is the actual layout of the establishment.
The raised stage is every bit as useful to the café’s intriguing music acts as it is for the daytime coffee drinkers who want to enjoy their café mocha in a well-dressed building with a character of its own.
The artwork and interior design warrant curious exploration for when you’re just milling around with your cup of espresso.
The service is welcoming and efficient, and the lattés don’t ever disappoint.
— Kevin Otzenberger

Hmmm, sounds like a prepared written statement, not an off-hand comment.

I don’t drink coffee, so I can’t really say I have a favorite coffeehouse, which is unfortunate because Moscow is home to so many cute ones.
My favorite place in town is one that serves Fruit Punch flavored Snapple.
That used to be WinCo, but they don’t seem to anymore, so now I wander around aimlessly searching for my favorite purple flavored drink.
— Meagan Robertson

Snapple? bleh… Oh well. To each his/her own. At least you save $$$ that way.

The Common Grounds.
Delicious, mediocre drip coffee.
Nice price.
Close to class.
Recipe: one splenda, small amount of half and half, pure coffee bliss.
— Padrhig Harney

Mediocre = pure coffee bliss? Eh, not quite. Can’t beat the location though!

I like the Starbucks in the Sixth Street Marketplace. It’s close to where I live and they have the best smoothies ever.
— Saida Razaee

The “Starbucks” next to the new dorms on sixth street is one of the nicer shops on campus. However, it’s not actually a Starbucks, they just a have a deal to use their beans and promo material. The menu is the same as the other Sodexho run shops on campus, which use Seattle’s Best. You can’t use a Starbucks gift card there. Also the chocolate syrup (for mochas) is NOT the same stuff.

Filed under: Bucer's Coffeehouse Pub, Links, One World Cafe, Sister's Brew, Starbucks, UI Campus Shops on November 9th, 2007 | No Comments »

This video is about two years old, but it’s good example of how to make a Cubano con Leche. Sugar is put into the bottom of the cup and the espresso shot is pulled directly onto it. The heat caramelizes some of the sugar. It then needs to be stirred up so that it will spread evenly throughout the drink when the milk is poured on. (This isn’t necessary with liquid sweetener syrups.) Zach Greenfield at Bucer’s shows us how it’s done, complete with a nice pour at the end. Tommy Emmanual plays “Bella Soave” on solo guitar in the background…

Filed under: Bucer's Coffeehouse Pub, Lore on October 29th, 2007 | No Comments »

Fill out a survey, and receive a travel mug with magical powers, including 25 cents off any drink at on-campus coffee shops at University of Idaho. It’s part of a green program to reduce the waste caused by paper cups. Starbucks has been doing this for years, but with them you only get a dime. Wa-hoo. If you normally get a drink every workday on campus, this could save you nearly $6.00 a month. The Argonaut has all the details.

Photo credit

Filed under: Deals, UI Campus Shops on October 26th, 2007 | No Comments »

My former classmate from music school, Davis Wilson, has some insight into the music sold near the counter at Starbucks across America. The selected artists actually WERE cool…until they were sold at Starbucks. The entire post is here.

The instant an artist’s album hits the CD rack at Starbucks is the death knell for that artist being actually cool. As I’ve argued before, coolness depends partially on exclusivity, but tripling your album sales and selling to the countless pumpkin-spice-latte-drinking yuppies with corporate jobs is anything but exclusive. When all of America knows Lyle Lovett makes good music, well, he can still make good music, but he doesn’t win any underground, sophisticated, acquired-taste points for it. And neither do you if you buy his albums. Even if you already had a Lyle Lovett album years before, Starbucks has devalued the currency via inflation, and how will anyone know that you listened to Lyle beforehand without Starbucks telling you he was any good?

Photo Credit

Filed under: Links, Music, Starbucks on October 4th, 2007 | No Comments »

What’s the difference between a latte and a cappuccino?

Least informed answer: They’re the same thing.

Somewhat informed answer (and the most common): Well, a cappuccino is a latte with more foamed milk on the top. It’s a little bit frothier.

Actual answer: A cappuccino is a drink of three equal parts espresso, milk, and foam. Since a regular double shot is 2 oz., a true cappuccino must be 6 oz. total. (Though I’ve had a few people tell me it could be closer to 7 oz. if you want to be picky.)

So there really isn’t such a thing as a 16 oz. cappuccino. That really would be just a latte with extra foam.

Some people refer to a “wet” or “dry” cappuccino. This is just an adjustment of the milk/foam ratio. A wet cappuccino has more milk, less foam. It’s inching closer to being a latte. A dry cappuccino has more foam, less milk. The coffee is less diluted and is closer to a macchiato.

To your average Starbucks fan, a true cappuccino would be WAY to strong.

“Macchiato” has an even more problematic definition than “cappuccino”. I’ll deal with it later.

Now, I should probably cite my sources for all of this. However, this is a blog, not a scholarly journal, so to heck with it!

From Wikipedia:

Attaining the correct ratio of foam requires close attention be paid while steaming the milk, thus making the cappuccino one of the most difficult espresso-based beverages to make properly.

Very true!

Partial Photo Credit

Filed under: Lore on September 29th, 2007 | No Comments »

This is part of my interview with Brenda, owner of the Cafe Silos. It’s probably the best coffee shop in Moscow that you’ve never heard of. Besides the fact that most people don’t know where it is, it’s not immediately apparent how to get there with your car. Why the unusual location? It turns out that trying to implement “smart growth” and mixed-use real estate is a lot harder than you might think.

Brenda: Main street is where you would want to have a coffee shop. You have all the signage and access and we don’t have access. We don’t think cars are the most important access. So there might not be access for cars but there is really good access for bikers and walkers. The path is right outside.

MCR: Well, and there are a lot apartments close buy, so I figured you were aiming at those people who could walk here easily.

B: And, it takes about 59 seconds to drive around. So there IS plenty of access and it’s not that difficult to figure out.

MCR: Well, it’s a real pretty place. Did you decide first that you wanted to build an apartment complex and then after that you decided to put businesses in the bottom of it?

B: It’s a funny story. The church sold us this because it’s a strange lot.

MCR: Oh, right, it’s a funny piece of land.

B: The city wanted to put a street through here, and they offered the church $600 for this lot. So I work at Moscow Realty and I got a call from them asking if I thought this piece of land was worth $600. So I said, well, let me look at it. I looked at it, it’s multi-family, it’s big enough to put at least 20 units on it. It’s definitely worth a lot more than $600. Then we communicated with the city saying it was a little bit low. They said it was a typo and they meant $6000. One thing led to another and eventually Moscow Realty was representing the church. I was representing the church. It’s a long story with the church, but at one point the church HAD to get rid of this lot so they sold it to Rob Davies. So he owned it and he wanted to put apartment units on it. The city’s interest was contrary to ours. They wanted to put a street through it. And so we went back and forth on it for about 4 years, and one day it was just so difficult, I said to the city attorney, what you think we want to build a coffee house there? Because at that moment, I knew the one thing that was not allowed in that zone was a coffee house. And then he said a few more things to me and I said, you know what? Let’s put a coffee house on the application.

B: [The rooms of the shop] are designed in such a way that they could become two apartments if the coffee house failed. It’s part of smart grown and mixed use. So it’s from a real estate growth perspective that it grew.

MCR: I’m really surprised you had so much trouble, I thought the city really wanted this smart growth stuff and integrating residential and services but then when you actually go to do it, you run into a wall.

B: Not the city staff. The staff do not want to bother with it. They just churn out the same thing.

MCR: Have you had the same experience in other dealings with them?

B: Yeah, we had a development project north of town that staff sabotaged. This is not a community development staff that believes in smart growth.

MCR: The coffee shop was just kind of thrown in there on the side? You’re not a big coffee lover?

B: Well, I appreciate a good cup of coffee. We thought we might sell the shop, but we never got any takers. The thing is, when people think of a coffee shop you think of a couple of things. First you think of Starbucks and emulating Starbucks. And the second thing you think of is you have to have access. You want something where people can just drive by and you’re going to make lots of money. This is a no-money making proposition.

B: And the garden design is mainly so if the city comes to put a street through, they destroy a really nice garden.

MCR: That’s why the garden is there?

B: Yeah, that’s exactly why it’s there. Because you think about a city who has all the power to take something through eminent domain and who kept us from doing this project for four years and even when it was finally done, came out here and wouldn’t give us our occupancy certificate until we planted a couple more trees. And you can see how much landscaping there is here.

MCR: There’s a ton!

B: Yeah, so the community development person comes out and says, Oh, you need a few more trees. And I said, well, where would you like them? He says, I want some over there and some over there. And the way we resolved it was I took some twigs from a maple tree and stuck them in the ground, called him up and said, the trees are in. He came out, he didn’t know what he was looking for, because he would have been embarrassed if he realized it. And then the department had to give us our certificate. So it was those kinds of obstacles that they put in our way all the time. But we’re here now and we’ll stay.

Filed under: Cafe Silos, Interviews on September 29th, 2007 | No Comments »

I’ve heard a lot of people say “Oh, I’d love to open a coffee shop!” I’ve even said it myself. Unfortunately, this isn’t as easy as it sounds. You need more money up-front than you think you do. And paying rent and buying all the fixtures and furniture is only the beginning I discovered. This is another part of my interview with Brenda, owner of Cafe Silos.

MCR: It seems like there have been other coffee shops that went out of business in the last year. There was Moxie Java. I think they didn’t pay their taxes?

Brenda: Well, I don’t think they are really to blame. You pay property tax first, you pay tax on all the personal property, so every teaspoon, every pen, everything that’s in the shop you pay tax on. So if they come in here and they find that you have a light that’s not on their list, you’re done for. You pay that to the county. Then you pay use tax, on the stuff that you’ve already paid property tax on you pay use tax. Then everyone you employee you pay social security, workman’s compensation, etc. And then there is liability insurance, and those insurances are huge. So that’s how Moxie got in trouble.

MCR: It’s amazing that anyone can run a shop!

Brenda: I think the main thing they couldn’t catch up on was the workman’s comp. Because if someone gets burned…it’s kind of a high risk business. All that steam…everything is hot!

MCR: I think that’s why we see coffee shops dealing in other areas. Coffee shop pubs. Coffee shop bookstores. Coffee shop bakerys. Coffee shop restaurants. Coffee shops with racks of CDs and gifts for sale. (I’ve even seen a coffee shop that was also the town pharmacy.) Once you’ve gone trough all the trouble of having a retail business, you might as well try to branch out a bit and bring in a few more sales.

Photo Credit

Filed under: Business, Interviews on September 28th, 2007 | No Comments »

Taking a tactic from Techcruch (which follows young internet companies) I am creating a “deadpool”. That’s where area coffee shops go when they can’t cut the mustard, for whatever reason. Our most recent establishment to return to the big coffee-grinder in the sky is Moxie Java.

Moxie Java is a small franchise. Most of its shops are in southern Idaho. A young business student opened one up here a little over a year ago. The University of Idaho’s Argonaut paper has a detailed article on the closure. Here’s an excerpt:

The news had broken earlier that morning, Feb. 1, when owner Tim Reichstein’s lawyers entered the shop, saying the store was closed for good and the employees had a half-hour to close.

Weigand didn’t expect to hear the news that day, but had seen it coming for a while.
“It was a long time coming,” he said. “(Reichstein) wasn’t paying (state) taxes. There were a number of times when the tax commission came to seize the money we made in a day.”
Financial problems weren’t the only factors leading to the coffee shop’s closure.
“There was poor management,” Weigand said. “We always ran out of things so we’d have to close early. And that shook customer confidence.”

They had the closest location to campus, a drive-through, and lots of new fixtures. What gives? I went there once shortly after they opened and had a bad cup. I chalked it up to a brand-new barista though. I had a couple friends that swore by the place and visited it every morning so it couldn’t have been too bad. I guess it shows that to make it in coffee you absolutely MUST run a tight ship.

UPDATE: The Pita Pit is moving into the old Moxie location since their old location was gutted by a fire over the summer. This location should be a good fit.

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Filed under: Gone forever on September 28th, 2007 | No Comments »