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Is Local Restaurant Coffee Awful? Also, Pulitzer Prize Guessing Game
A reader from Paradise Roasters in Ramsey writes:
“We primarily sell coffee retail through our website, ParadiseRoasters.com, but we are looking at expanding into local restaurants. We don't expect this to be the easiest thing to do, because even in such a foodie area as the Twin Cities, the restaurant coffee here is still horrible. Because no one complains? No one cares?”
“I'm also hoping that the coffee could help fuel your literary fire. I know, it’s kind of cheesy, but that's what one of our customers, a Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction, said about our coffee when it came to his writing. I won't argue.”
To which I reply: Interesting points! Some local restaurant coffee is indeed horrid. I was in an expensive Italian restaurant just yesterday that had no espresso machine and served coffee that tasted sour and hospital-like. However, there are some restaurants—Pazzaluna, Duplex, Meritage—that have very good coffee. There are also now a number of coffee shops that operate as restaurants during the dinner hour, like Black Dog, Oscar Wilde, and Gigi’s.
I’m actually interested in what readers think: Is local restaurant coffee horrible? If so, why? Moreover, do you care?
I’m more urgently awaiting the answer to this quetion: Who’s the Pulitzer Prize winner fueled by coffee from Ramsey, Minnesota? I’m going to guess it’s not Junot Diaz; there’s plenty of coffee in Boston, where he lives. And I bet that Cormac McCarthy is of a generation not inclined to spending a lot of time on the internet buying coffee. Yeah, I know you probably won’t tell me out of fear of violating your customers’ privacy, but, dear readers, check out the Wikipedia page of Pulitzer winners for fiction and put together your own best guess.
My money’s on James Alan McPherson, but not much money, because I pulled that out of thin air.
As to your primary coffee-selling question, and how one would get into restaurants—I have no idea. What I hear is that everyone right now is in a frenzy of cost-cutting, not upgrading.
However, I’ll leave this to the wisdom of the crowds: Anybody?
Posted on Monday, February 23, 2009 in Permalink
Comments may be edited for length, clarity, or appropriateness.
Reader Comments:
I think the coffee at Blackbird Cafe (50th and Bryant) is pretty great.
I've always been impressed by the coffee at Corner Table.
Restaurant coffee is often bad and neglected. I think often treated as a revenue source rather than an expression of quality. Even with good beans I suspect it is brewed improperly/inconsistently.
That said, I've heard good things about the coffee at Corner Table.
The coffee at Hell's Kitchen is wonderful!! All else pales in comparison.
Other coffee pet peeves?
When you order decaf and find yourself wide awake at 4 a.m. thinking: That wasn't decaf...
Other great restaurants with coffee? Crema Cafe and La Belle Vie.
Also, here's my idea on how to make $100 the hard way, someone should make some kind of big coffee-serving and bagel-dispensing tricycle and hit all the playgrounds in the morning, I'd say the number one place I am always dying for a cup of coffee but can't get it is the tot lot on the eastern shore of Lake Calhoun. Sometimes I go to the playground across from Crema just so I can get coffee from Crema.
I thoroughly enjoy the coffee that Heidi’s Restaurant on 50th Street serves. The coffee always tastes freshly brewed and is consistent.
Before I get to the "do restaurants have good coffee" conundrum, I will say that one of the best cups I've had was at the Uptown bar. Completely unexpected, and utterly delicious.
Since then, most restaurant coffee I've had is more akin to civil engineering than architecture--it gets the caffeine job done with varying degrees of elegance and quality (or not).
Truth be told I think most people, probably even myself included, simply don't know what a truly great cup of coffee tastes like, and so we don't really have any good standards with which to judge our experience. Beans from different places taste different, and different places roast them differently to pull out different flavors, etc. etc. The people at my office all make coffee differently, from watery to caustic, and they all swear it tastes great.
What we need here in the TC is a coffee primer--a way to find a solid benchmark to begin developing our collective coffee palate. It's like wine--start with a grape you like, try some different vintners, and begin learning what not only what you like but what makes some wines (or it could be beers or whatever) better than others. Until then I think most people will only know a good cuppa when it unexpectedly arrives, and even then they won't know why it's good or how to replicate it.
I think the gold standard to follow for coffee in the Twin Cities would be Kopplin's. Premium quality beans that are never dark-roasted (which burns and ruins them!), each cup lovingly prepared to order in a clover machine, which renders coffee that is well balanced, always the perfect temperature, and never bitter.
Not that it would be feasible for most restaurants to brew with a clover machine (if only one coffee shop in town uses one, they must be very hard to purchase/install/maintain), but if you're going to follow a gold standard for coffee, I think Kopplin's would be it.
There is great coffee to be had elsewhere in town where more traditional brewing methods are used (Tillie's Bean and Gigi are my personal faves,) but I think none are in Kopplin's league.
I think the coffee at Zumbro is phenom! and the decaf at Heidi's after dinner is delicious and piping hot.
Good thoughts about Kopplin's, I agree it's great coffee. Though it's not a restaurant.
Here's a thought on the great coffee, great food tip: I just learned that Alexander Dixon, of the dear lost and lamented Zander Cafe, is making soup for a few select clients from a catering kitchen in South Minneapolis, and one of those clients is J&S Bean Factory in St. Paul:
http://www.jsbeanfactory.com/
So, do you miss Zander? And, by extension, the New French Cafe of the 1990's, where Zander cooked before? Then pilot yourself on over to J&S for some soup.
Back on the coffee beat; When I have talked to people in the know about the greatest coffee in Minnesota two names that always come up are Kopplin's and J&S.
So, take that Minneapolis! St. Paul rules.
Unless anybody has another thought?