Category Archives: USA & Canada

Coffee Spots in the United States of America and Canada

Jany’s

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Jany's Diner, on the corner of 12th and WoodJany’s, in downtown Philadelphia, was introduced to me by Greg, of Coffee Guru App fame, my guide during my stay in Philadelphia. For those who don’t know it, Jany’s is an old-fashioned American diner of the type that I adore, akin to Charlie’s Sandwich Shoppe in Boston. Serving typical diner fare (ie good quality comfort food), the food is both excellent and extremely good value for money, with a massive menu to choose from. So, that’s the good news.

The bad news is that, having been run by Jany and her family since 1977, Jany is hoping to retire this summer and is looking to sell the business on. With luck, someone will buy it and carry it on much as it is, but who knows what will happen? So, if you get the chance, check out Jany’s while you can. Or buy it. But don’t change anything!

It would be great if Jany’s was still open, still serving the same wholesome value-for-money food when I next come to Philadelphia.

March 2015: Jany’s is still here! I’ve just called in for brunch on my return to Philadelphia and am delighted to report that Jany’s is under new ownership and going strong. As far as I can tell, other than the addition of Wifi, nothing else has changed 🙂

May 2017: Jany’s has closed for good, something I was able to confirm on my 2018 trip to Philadelphia. Thanks to Nick for the heads up.

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ReAnimator

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ReAnimator Coffee, painted black on a white background on the brick wall above the door.If there was a Coffee Spot Award for “Weirdest Shape for a Coffee Shop”, I think Philadelphia’s ReAnimator would win it, hands down. It beats even Dublin’s 3FE and London’s FreeState Coffee. Some coffee shops are L-shaped, or variations on a square or a wedge, but ReAnimator is genuinely a triangle, and a pointy one at that.

Of course, just having an interestingly-shaped building doesn’t amount to much if you don’t have very good coffee. Fortunately for us, ReAnimator has very good coffee indeed. It’s one of that breed of roaster-coffee shops that seems, to me at least, far more prevalent in the US than here in the UK.

Right now there’s just the one ReAnimator in the Fishtown neighbourhood, north of the centre, although plans are well underway for a new headquarters, which will combine roastery, training centre and a second café. In keeping with ReAnimator’s neighbourhood philosophy, this will also be in Fishtown.

If you like the coffee, you can buy it on-line, where, according to ReAnimator’s website, it’s roasted to demand. Alternatively, pop into the store itself, where you will find shelves and shelves filled with bags of coffee waiting for you to take them away!

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The Franklin Fountain

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The Franklin Fountain sign, showing a man in a white uniform, mixing sodas.The Franklin Fountain is that most wonderful of things, an old-fashioned American ice cream parlour. Yes, I know this is the Coffee Spot, but every now and then I’m allowed a little indulgence and this is one such occasion. Besides, The Franklin Fountain serves coffee. Not that I’ve ever had any, mind you; I’ve always been too busy scoffing the ice cream.

Although it celebrates its 10th birthday this summer, The Franklin Fountain recreates an authentic turn-of-the-century ice cream parlour and soda fountain. It’s a lovely spot, with a mosaic, tiled floor, old tinned walls and ceilings and two belt-driven ceiling fans. It serves some truly gorgeous ice cream, with 20 different flavours, as well as sorbets and various sundaes.

It’s also extremely popular. Most of the times I passed by, there were queues out of the door (keeping in mind that this was back in March and the temperature had just gotten above freezing; I hate to think what it’s like in the summer!). It does a brisk trade, a lot of it takeaway, but there is limited seating inside and a couple of tables out front, not that there’s much chance of getting a seat in the evenings!

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Ox Coffee

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A beautiful Gibraltar (Cortado) from Ox Coffee.Ox Coffee is a lovely spot, which I visited on my first-ever trip to Philadelphia, becoming a firm favourite of mine. I try my best to pop in whenever I visit the city, calling in back in February 2016 to see the “new” back room/garden, and again in March 2018 to sample Ox’s coffee after it had started roasting.

With its stripped-back, clean looks, Ox wouldn’t be out of place in either New York or London. It brings to mind New York spots such as Gimme! Coffee or the Bluebird Coffee Shop, as well as London’s White Mulberries. This, by the away, is more of a commentary on the rents: most places in (central) London or New York just can’t afford the sort of floor space I regularly see in Philadelphia outside of the city centre!

Ox has a similarly clean, stripped-back menu, with just a selection of cake to accompany the coffee, which these days is roasted in-house. There’s a blend, Ox Coffee #1, on espresso, and another (Ox Coffee #2; you can see where this is going) on bulk-brew, which is joined by one of two single-origins (a Guatemalan while I was there). Finally, there’s a decaf, from Stumptown.

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Caffé Roma: Update

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A St Joseph's Cake, from Caffé Roma in Little Italy, New York City.Last week, I promised you something different for this week’s Saturday Supplement. After weeks of reports from The London Coffee Festival, with the odd interlude for the Coffee Stops Awards and Caffé Culture Show, today’s Saturday Supplement is one for those of you with a sweet tooth. It’s also something of a new venture for the Coffee Spot, to go with recent posts on Tea Houses & Chocolate Shops.

Last year, I wrote about Caffé Roma, an old favourite of mine in the heart of New York City’s Little Italy. An old-fashioned Italian café, Caffé Roma is renowned for its excellent cakes, one of which is the St Joseph’s Cake. These are only made at weekends during February and March. Using a deep-fried dough, they can be had plain or filled with either cannoli or vanilla patisserie cream.

After publishing my original piece on Caffé Roma, I entered into e-mail correspondence with Vincent Jnr, whose father owns Caffé Roma. Knowing that I was back in New York, Vincent invited me over to say hello and, when I arrived, offered me the chance to have a tour of the bakery where the St Joseph’s Cakes are made. How could I refuse?

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Box Kite

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An espresso in a white cup from Box Kite CoffeeBox Kite is a relatively new player on the New York coffee scene, occupying a small, cosy spot on St Marks Place in the East Village, two blocks east from old favourite I Am Coffee and just across Tompkins Square from Ninth Street Espresso. Opening on January 1st this year, Box Kite is, dare I say it, more European-style coffee shop than American, offering coffee and wine in the day, with food in the evening. This is all served with a touch of elegance that reminded me of the likes of London’s Notes and Fernandez & Wells.

Seating is very limited, both in the number of seats and in what’s available. While you can come to Box Kite for a romantic, candle-lit dinner, don’t expect to find yourself sitting at a table, gazing across at your loved one. Seating at Box Kite is strictly at the counter or on stools at one of two very small bars. That said, it’s the ideal place to sit and drink coffee!

I’m indebted to Lee Gaze for recommending Box Kite, which he said was so good he walked two miles in a blizzard to get to it. You can’t get better than that!

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L.A. Burdick, New York City

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The store-front of L.A. Burdick on W20th Street, New York CityFor today’s Wednesday-Saturday Supplement, we’re staying in New York City with L.A. Burdick. Like Monday’s Coffee Spot, Stumptown on West 8th Street, L.A. Burdick is another out-of-town incomer, although this time it hasn’t had to come as far as the West Coast. Originally from Walpole, New Hampshire, I first came across L.A. Burdick in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when a friend tipped me off about it a couple of years ago.

For those not in the know, L.A. Burdick is a chocolate shop, but not any old chocolate shop. L.A. Burdick has made its name selling high quality chocolate and, through its four in-house cafes, equally high-quality drinking chocolate. Although it does fairly good coffee (and tea, which I’m not qualified to comment on), in my personal opinion, you’d be mad to come here and have anything other than the hot chocolate.

It also sells cakes and pastries, which, it seems to me, is complete overkill. As regular readers will know, I am rather partial to a slice of cake or three. However, having once described L.A. Burdick hot chocolate as a “heart attack in a cup”, the last thing I want to accompany one is more calories!

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Stumptown West 8th Street

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The writing on the window of the Brew Bar part of Stumptown, W 8th St,, New York City. "STUMPTOWN" over "COFFEE ROASTERS" in capitals, with "Brew Bar" in cursive script in between.Stumptown is, in US coffee circles (and beyond), something of a legend, both as a roaster and as the owner of some iconic coffee shops. On this year’s US trip, I thought it was high time I paid a visit. With branches in its home town of Portland (Oregon, not Maine), Seattle and Los Angeles on the West Coast, but just New York City on the east, the logical choice was NYC.

I made a beeline for Stumptown’s second NYC location on West 8th Street, just north of Washington Square in Greenwich Village. Open since May 2013, it possesses quite possibly the most handsome interior of any coffee shop I’ve ever seen (although Intelligentsia in the lobby of the High Line Hotel gives it a run for its money). It consists of two connected spaces: a lavishly fitted-out espresso bar on the corner of West 8th and MacDougal Streets and a smaller, more intimate brew bar, with its own door onto MacDougal Street.

The coffee, as one might expect, is all from Stumptown, with a quite bewildering array of eleven single-origin beans available, along with three blends and two decaf options (one blend and one single-origin). As far as I could tell, all can be had through any of six filter methods, as espresso or cold brew.

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Everyman Espresso, Soho

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A gorgeous cortado in a glass, made with the Rustico blend from Counter Culture at Everyman Coffee in New York CityEveryman Espresso is a chain of precisely two (now three) coffee shops in New York City, the original in the East Village, this one on West Broadway in Soho and a third in Brooklyn. I visited the Soho branch largely because it was more convenient, given where I was staying, plus it was the one that several baristas in other coffee shops had recommended.

There’s no obvious menu in Everyman, something I first came across in La Colombe, a neat tactic which means you have to engage with the baristas. Unlike La Colombe, however, there is a printed menu; it’s just kept under the counter so you have to ask for it if you need it.

Everyman Espresso’s tag line is “damn fine coffee”, but it could, in the words of Amanda, my barista, be “damn fine everything”. Not only does Everyman have damn fine espresso, as one would expect, which comes from a very sexy La Marzocco La Strada, but there’s damn fine hand-poured and batch brew filter as well. According to Amanda, there’s damn fine tea (which I didn’t try), to go with damn fine staff and damn fine surroundings. And damn fine Wifi too…

It certainly lived up to its billing…

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Elixr

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A chemex of Elixr's own single-origin coffee is being lovingly prepared.Elixr is something of a legend in the fledging Philadelphia coffee scene. It’s been around for just three years and, as is often the way with such places, it’s already seeded other local coffee shops. Menagerie Coffee, for example, was set-up by ex-Elixr manager, April. It’s also a fairly small world since I ran into Willa (the barista who I met at Menagerie the previous evening) who works weekends at Elixr. Indeed, it was something of a disappointment not to find Willa working in all the coffee shops I visited while I was in Philadelphia!

Elixr offers the usual range of espresso-based drinks, the obligatory bulk-brew filter and hand-poured filter via Chemex. When it opened, Elixr used PT’s coffee, but now the coffee is roasted in-house by Elixr’s owner. While I was there, there were five single-origins on pour-over, with a house-blend and guest single-origin on espresso.

Elixr is another physically beautiful space in a city that’s full of such places. It’s a long, thin coffee shop of the type that I seemed to run into quite frequently on my trip. It was very busy while I was there, and, despite its size, seating was at a premium.

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