Category Archives: Coffee Shops

Coffee Spots with an emphasis on serving coffee

Street Bean Coffee

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The A-board outside Street Bean Coffee on Seattle's 3rd Avenue, pointing the way inside.Coffee with a conscience, community coffee, social coffee; the list goes on. The idea that a coffee shop can do more than just serve good coffee seems to be taking off, with several social enterprise coffee shops springing up, with some London’s leading society enterprises being featured in Issue 15 of Caffeine Magazine. However, while in Seattle, I was lucky enough to visit Street Bean Coffee, a pioneer in this area which first opened its doors in 2009.

Sitting in the shadow of Seattle’s futuristic Space Needle on 3rd Avenue, Street Bean doesn’t wear its heart on its sleeve. Rather than relying on pricking your conscience, Street Bean is happy to stand up on its own two feet as a coffee shop, something it does very well. Street Bean is a multi-roaster shop, quite a rare thing in the US, offering single-origins and blends on espresso, a wide range of single-origin pour-overs and the obligatory bulk-brew (yet another single-origin option).

By the time you read this, Street Bean will also have starting roasting in the space next door, with initially a 1.5 kg roaster, which will be used for training. Check its website for more on what Street Bean does.

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Extracto Coffee Roasters, Prescott

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The Extracto Coffee Roaster logo: a coffee bean held in a metal clamp.Since I’ve been starting my mornings with Extracto’s Eleven of Spades espresso blend, I thought I ought to write up my Coffee Spot on Extracto’s Prescott branch, which was the final stop on my second (and final) day in Portland, Oregon. Extracto is a chain of exactly two, the Prescott branch and the roastery/coffeehouse on Killingsworth, both of which are north of Portland city centre.

Ideally I’d have visited the roastery first, but it’s another 30 minutes further out from the city centre and I’d already done a lot of travelling between coffee shops that day, having started down to the south at Either/Or earlier that morning. Instead, I settled for the closer branch in Prescott village, where Prescott Street meets 15th Avenue in northeast Portland.

Set at the back of a courtyard, a little way off the busy Prescott Street, Extracto is a great little place. All the coffee is roasted over in Killingsworth. There’s a choice of the Eleven of Spades house-blend, a single-origin or decaf on espresso, while on pour-over there were four different beans on offer during my visit. A more extensive range of beans are on sale on a table by the counter.

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Tandem Cafe & Roastery

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A light bulb in the shape of a tandem bicycle from the wall of the Tandem Coffee Roasters Roastery Tandem Coffee has undergone many changes since I first visited its cafe & roastery on Anderson Street in 2015 at the start of my coast-to-coast train journey from Portland (Maine) to Portland (Oregon). Back then, Anderson was just a dirt road, the neighbourhood was very much up-and-coming and Tandem occupied a squat, two-room building, housing both cafe and roastery. These days, the neighbourhood is almost unrecognisable, packed with new shops, restaurants, bars, breweries and, of course, ever-present throughout, there’s Tandem.

The cafe now occupies both rooms, the roastery having moved to a second single-story brick building behind the first. These days, the counter is in the old roastery space, directly ahead as you enter, seating arranged around the walls and at the counter’s far end. Meanwhile, there’s more seating in the second room to your left, while you can also sit outside at a pair of picnic tables. Tandem’s concise espresso menu features a daily single-origin and decaf, while there are two/three single-origins on pour-over through the SP9/V60 (which can be had hot or iced). Alternatively, there’s batch brew, featuring either the Time & Temperature or West End Blues blends, cold brew and tea, plus a small range of cakes/pastries.

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Stoked Roasters + Coffeehouse

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A chalk drawing on the wall at Stoked Roasters + Coffeehouse, showing a blossom tree in bloom with the words "Live in full Bloom"To celebrate Brian’s Travel Spot reaching the West Coast and the Columbia Gorge, I present Stoked Roasters and Coffeehouse in Hood River, on the Oregon side of the amazing Columbia Gorge. That I even know about Stoked is down to Chloe, aka The Faerietale Foodie, who visited a few months before me and informed me of this wonderful find.

Stoked is indicative of the spread of speciality coffee outside of the big America cities. Both roaster and coffeehouse, a model much more common in the US than it is in the UK, Stoked roasts all its coffee in the store itself on a lovely San Franciscan roaster. You can buy all the output, a mixture of single-origins and blends, from a retail shelf by the door. As is often the case in the US, the beans, even for the single-origins, are typically roasted more darkly than in the UK.

When it comes to the coffeehouse side of the business, Stoked offers a wide range of drinks, including house-blend, single-origin and decaf on espresso, the obligatory bulk brew and hand-poured filter on the V60. While I was there, there was a choice between three single-origins and, unusually for filter, two blends.

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Small Batch, Norfolk Square

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The Small Batch Logo: two gentlemen on a tandem, one holding a coffee pot, the other a mug. Above is written "DRINK SMALL BATCH COFFEE" and below "It's good for what ails you".Given that I’ve written about both Small Batch’s coffee and about places serving Small Batch, I thought it about time that I wrote about Small Batch itself. For those who don’t know, Small Batch is a well-established and well-respected roaster and coffee shop chain in Brighton & Hove, which I covered on one of my first assignments for Caffeine Magazine. In all, there are four Small Batch coffee shops in Brighton and Hove, with coffee stalls at both Brighton and Hove stations, and a roastery/café in Hove. Naturally, this being the Coffee Spot, I started at the end, not the beginning, visiting the newest Small Batch of all, the Norfolk Square branch.

On the busy Western Road, between Brighton and Hove, this might be the most beautiful of all the Small Batches. Located in an old bank branch, it is an elegant, bright, high-ceilinged space, enhanced by an island counter that subtly dominates the room. There’s a range of seating, including at the counter itself, where you can watch the espresso machine in action or marvel at the brew bar on the opposite side. You can also sit outside if you wish.

And, of course, there’s Small Batch’s excellent coffee.

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Milstead & Co.

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A model of a biplane sitting above the door at Milstead & Co. in Seattle.Milstead & Co., in Seattle’s Fremont district, is tucked away almost directly under the Aurora Bridge, which vaults far overhead across the Fremont Cut. It was recommended to me by several people, including no lesser an authority than Slate. Fortunately I was staying, completely coincidently, about a 15-minute walk away along Highway 99. Having bemoaned the fact that I hadn’t found many multi-roaster coffee shops in America (Boston’s Render Coffee being a rare exception to this rule), I suddenly seemed to be falling over them in Portland (Either/Or) and Seattle (Street Bean), with Milstead being the latest example.

Milstead & Co. offers two options on espresso (while I was there, a single-origin and a blend) and three single-origins on Aeropress (no bulk-brew filter here!). The drink types/sizes are fairly standard, although no-one was phased when I ordered a decaf cortado (which wasn’t on the menu). Like Portland’s Either/Or, Milstead rotates the coffee as and when it runs out, usually putting on two 5lb bags at a time. To give you an example, while I was there, one of two espresso options (the one I had!) ran out and was replaced by a single-origin Guatemalan that was also on the filter menu.

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Either/Or

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The sign hanging outside Either/Or in Portland. The words EITHER/Or on a wooden board.

One of the many things I like about Portland’s coffee scene is that it’s not just confined to the centre. There seems to be good coffee all over the city, especially east of the Willamette River. Such is the case with Either/Or, which was not on my original list. However, it was independently recommended to me by baristas from both Case Study Coffee Roasters and Coava Coffee Roasters as the place to go in Portland. Although quite a way south of the centre, it’s not the sort of recommendation you can ignore, so I hopped on the Number 70 bus down to the Sellwood-Moreland neighbourhood.

What I found was a delightful little place that was well worth the trip. Either/Or is something of a rarity in an American market where café/roasters seem to be the established model. It’s a genuine multi-roaster establishment, regularly rotating beans from local roasters Roseline and Heart, plus Seattle’s Kuma Coffee.  Denver’s Huckleberry Roasters and Oregon’s Bespoken Coffee Roasters occasionally make appearances too. While coffee’s clearly the primary focus, with two tasting flights (see Slate Coffee Roasters) on offer, it also helps that Either/Or is one of the nicest spots I’ve been to in a while.

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Asado Coffee, Pickwick Place

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A beautiful espresso in a classic white cup, served at Asado Coffee, Pickwick Place.Asado is a small coffee shop/roaster chain with three (soon to be four) branches in downtown Chicago. I’d already planned to visit Asado’s branch on Jackson Boulevard (Pickwick Place), a block from an old favourite of mine, Intelligentsia, when I was coincidentally introduced to Jeff Liberman, one of Asado’s co-owners. As a result, I got a behind the scenes tour, which you can read about in Brian’s Travel Spot.

Asado occupies its own private alley, Pickwick Place, a narrow dead-end on the north side of Jackson Boulevard. If that doesn’t sound very appealing, then think again, since it’s one of the best locations I’ve seen for a coffee shop (in good weather, at least!). Sheltered on both sides by tall buildings, all the seating (bar for a single chair) is outside in the alley, a beautiful, south-facing sun trap.

Asado roasts all its own coffee, each of its locations having its own bespoke analogue roaster. Due to space limitations, Pickwick Place is the exception to this rule. Despite this lack of space, it still manages a full espresso menu, pulled on a beautiful Kees van der Westen lever machine, plus individual hand-poured filter, supplemented with bulk-brew filter when it’s busy.

August 2016: I’ve just heard that the shop has changed hands and is now Pickwick Coffee.

September 2017: on my return to Chicago, I discovered that Pickwick Coffee is no more and that it is now a branch of Hero Coffee Roasters.

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Bard Coffee

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The label on a bag of Bard Coffee's High Tide Espresso blend: medium roast, a blend of Central America and East Africa coffees, tasting notes of sweet red berries, orange-like citrus with a creamy body and a dark chocolate finish.As part of my current US trip, I paid a visit to Portland, Maine, partly to check out the local coffee scene and partly because it made a cool addition to my overall journey. What I found was a thriving coffee scene which I’ll cover in the next few months, starting today with the lovely Bard Coffee.

Bard Coffee occupies an amazing location next to Tommy’s Park, a lovely green space right in the heart of downtown Portland. For once got my timing right and arrived two weeks after Bard had reopened following a major refurbishment. Normally, it’s the other way around, with me arriving just before a refurbishment or, better still, in the middle of one!

Bard roasts all its own coffee, with a good selection available at any time. On espresso, there’s the seasonal High Tide blend or the decaf Lo-Fi blend, while on bulk brew there are two coffees of the day, a light- and dark-roasted single-origin. Finally, you can have any of five single-origins, plus decaf, through the Kalita Wave filter, with one of the single-origins available through the Chemex. This last one is chosen to highlight the difference between the Chemex and Kalita brew methods.

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Upshot Espresso

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A lovely flat white in an orange cup from Upshot Espresso in SheffieldUpshot Espresso, on Sheffield’s Glossop Road, takes a little bit of finding. Just outside of the centre, near Sheffield University and the hospital, it’s an unprepossessing place, much like Manchester’s TAKK. From the street, a modest, red sign hangs above the door with the words “Upshot Espresso”, while “Independent Coffeehouse” is written in the window. Other than that, there is little in the plain exterior that hints at the delights that lie within.

Make no mistake though. While it’s exterior is not quite as modest as, say, Newcastle’s Flat Caps Coffee, Upshot is very much in the same league. Run by father and son, Neal and Sam, Upshot serves Square Mile’s Red Brick as the house espresso, with a veritable who’s who of British speciality coffee appearing as the regularly-rotating guest. If espresso’s not your thing, there’s also a guest Aeropress option, while Upshot takes as much care about its tea as it does about its coffee, with carefully-selected offerings from Canton Tea Co.

There is also food and cake, and while the menu/selection may be limited, all the food is freshly cooked on the premises and served with the same love and dedication as the coffee (and tea).

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