Plenty Café, Rittenhouse

The A-board outside Plenty in Rittenhouse, proudly displaying its coffee credentials with local roasters Rival Brothers and Square One CoffeeWe continue my mini-coffee tour of Philadelphia with Plenty Café. It seems harsh to call Plenty a chain, since there are only two of them, but there you go. I visited the second one, on Spruce Street, which has only been open since Thanksgiving the previous year. It’s in the area known as Rittenhouse, just south of the centre, around the corner from such luminaries as Elixr. The contrast between the bustle of Elixr and the relative, relaxed calm of Plenty was striking.

Plenty was introduced to me as a “sandwich joint” which, I feel, is understating its coffee credentials. With local Philadelphia roasters, Rival Brothers, providing the house blend, and guest roaster, Square One from Lancaster PA (not Lancaster, Lancashire, and not, as I first read it, London’s Square Mile!) providing the beans for the pour-over and guest espresso, it’s coffee credentials are pretty decent.

Add to that perhaps my favourite space in Philadelphia (although it had plenty of competition from the likes of Menagerie Coffee and Ox), a great atmosphere, amazing cakes and probably the best cup of coffee I had in Philadelphia and you have a clear winner! Ironically, the only things I didn’t try were the sandwiches…

March 2018: Plenty Café is now a chain of three, and exclusively uses Square One. You can also see what I made of the original Plenty Café on East Passyunk Avenue.

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Render Coffee

The Render Coffee logo, from the sign outside. The words RENDER COFFEE above a line-drawing of an anvil.I think I’ve found a new favourite in Boston. Head a few blocks along Columbus Avenue past my favourite breakfast spot, Charlie’s Sandwich Shoppe, and you’ll find Render Coffee, just before the junction with Massachusetts Avenue. Ironically, I found it from the other direction, walking south along Mass Ave from Pavement Coffeehouse on Boylston. Although only 10 minutes from Pavement, the contrast couldn’t have been sharper, going from the busy Pavement to the relatively laid-back calm of Render. Quiet, but not empty, it was a relaxed and relaxing place to spend the afternoon.

Like Pavement, Render serves Counter Culture as both espresso and pour-over, along with guest coffees (both from Gracenote Coffee during my visits). One of the things I really liked is there’s no bulk-brew filter coffee. Instead, Render only offers hand-pour. There’s also an excellent selection of food and cake.

Long and thin seems to be a theme for Boston coffee shops and Render is no different in this respect. Accessed by a short flight of steps up from Columbus Avenue, you can sit right at the front and watch the traffic go by, or better still, sit at the back where there’s an excellent fireplace and conservatory!

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Menagerie Coffee

A cappuccino in a classic white cup, sitting on a tree-stump table in the window, half in shadow from the sunlight.If I lived in/around Philadelphia, I could see the delightful Menagerie Coffee, just off Market Street down near Penn’s Landing in the Old City, becoming a regular haunt. Set up six months ago by April and Elysa, they’ve brought excellent coffee heritage (April worked at the long-established Elixr, another Philadelphia stand-out) and married it with a lovely space in an area that’s crying out for quality coffee.

It doesn’t hurt that it’s also a couple of blocks from the hotel I stayed in, which was a bonus! My host, Greg of Coffee Guru App fame, and I went there on Friday afternoon, not long after I’d arrived in Philadelphia. I popped back on my own on Sunday morning, preferring to start the day with a Menagerie cappuccino over the (adequate but unexciting) coffee served up by the hotel.

Menagerie uses Dogwood Coffee from Minneapolis for the house-blend (Neon espresso) and decaf (Sumatran mountain-water process), while four single-origins are available as pour-overs. These change on a regular basis and come from a variety of roasters (while I was there, two were from Dogwood, with one each from Ceremony of Annapolis and Boston’s George Howell).

February 2016: true to my word, on both my subsequent trips to Philadelphia, I have stayed near Menagerie and have started each day there with a cappuccino.

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Bluebird Coffee Shop

The Bluebird Coffee Shop logo as written in the window of the shop, bluebird in lower case blue, COFFEE SHOP in upper case white.Bluebird Coffee Shop is a tiny spot on East 1st Street, just by the junction of 1st Avenue and East Houston. Even though I was looking for it, I walked straight past it the first time, that’s how small it is. And, if I’m honest, I wasn’t paying attention. However, it is a lovely little place, well worth hunting down, in an area which already has several great choices.

Serving Counter Culture coffee either through the espresso machine or via the obligatory bulk-brew drip filter, Bluebird also manages to pack cake and a fairly decent breakfast/lunch menu (which it stops serving at three o’clock) into its small space. What’s even more impressive is that it’s all baked on the premises in the kitchen downstairs (with the exception of the croissants)!

The other outstanding thing about Bluebird was its friendliness. Other than I Am Coffee, which is so small you have to talk to everyone, Bluebird might be the friendliest coffee shop I’ve been to on my US travels. Starting with the Barista, Ben, and running through the customers, everyone seemed happy to chat, but not in a pushy way. It is pretty much the perfect coffee shop atmosphere.

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La Colombe, Dilworth Plaza

The La Colombe logo with Penn Square in the backgroundLa Colombe is, according to my host, Greg of Coffee Guru App fame, something of a Philadelphia legend and it’s not hard to see why. Although it has branches around the country, including New York City, its home is in Philly. As well this chain of coffee shops, La Colombe roasts all its own beans in the Fishdown district of Philadelphia, not far from the centre, where it has a new flagship cafe.

At Greg’s recommendation, I visited the Dilworth Plaza branch, right by City Hall, smack bang in the centre of Philadelphia. La Colombe offers espresso, the obligatory bulk-brew, iced coffee and, for filter coffee, it uses the famous steampunk machines. Something that sets La Colombe apart from the crowd is an insistence on only serving one size of drink (8 oz). No buckets of milk here!

Interestingly, there’s no menu, which, according to Katrina, my barista, forces customers to engage with the staff. And vice-versa. Certainly in the case of my visit it worked really well!  There’s also no Wifi, another move designed to promote conversation and interaction. As much as I like my free Wifi, I can only applaud the sentiments behind this decision.

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Pavement Coffeehouse, Boylston

The Pavement Coffeehouse logoPavement Coffeehouse is a chain of four shops (six as of May 2015), all in the Back Bay area of Boston. I was fortunate enough to visit the original, which is at the western end of Boylston Street, just beyond the junction with Massachusetts Avenue. I really liked it, finding it a curious mix of American coffee shop (front) and European coffee house (back). The coffee, from Counter Culture, is excellent, the food is good and the staff friendly. I was there twice, once for morning coffee and once for lunch; both times it was packed!

You can tell that Pavement is serious about its coffee: there are two espressos on offer, a single-origin (Buziraguhindwa from Burundi), served straight, and a blend (Rustico; a mix of 70% Guatemala and 30% Ethiopia) to be served with milk. There is also the choice of two more single-origins (a Rwandan and a Bolivian) on filter (generally called “hand-poured” in the US) in this case made using the Clever dripper, something I don’t see very often (the last time was at Bath’s Colonna & Small’s). The coffee options were rounded off with the obligatory drip-filter (bulk brew), another single-origin (Baroida from Papua New Guinea).

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Ninth Street Espresso (9th & 10th St)

The window of Ninth Street Espresso, disconcertingly on 10th Street and Tompkins SquareNinth Street Espresso has been around since 2001, making it something of an established player in New York’s speciality coffee market compared to newcomers such as Pushcart Coffee where I’d started my day.  I tried two branches, the original on 9th Street in Alphabet City and the East Village branch just two blocks away on 10th Street/Tompkins Square.

In theory I should have liked Tompkins Square as much as I liked 9th Street. However, I didn’t. On such small things hang the status of a Coffee Spot, although in fairness to Tompkins Square, the reasons I didn’t get on with it were very much specific to that visit.

In both branches, the focus is firmly on the coffee, which is excellent, while what’s on offer is very typical for an American coffee shop. Although Tompkins Square has seating, it’s set up more for takeaway trade, while 9th Street is much more the place to linger for an hour or two. They’re a little off the beaten (tourist) track in the East Village/Alphabet City area, but if you happen to be in the vicinity, both branches are worth visiting.

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Gasoline Alley Coffee

The Gasoline Alley Logo, crossed-espresso basketsNew York City’s Gasoline Alley is a curious place. It could easily BE an alley, providing a cut across between Lafayette and Mulberry streets, on which some enterprising soul has put doors at either end and a roof on top to turn it into a coffee shop. Disappointingly, it’s not, but the feeling that you are sitting in an alley is hard to shake.

What made Gasoline Alley for me was the coffee; it serves Intelligentsia, a brand which I’m familiar with from my many visits to Chicago and one which I really like. Of course, great beans don’t guarantee great coffee, but in Gasoline Alley’s case, the baristas use their La Marzocco espresso machine to get the very best out of Intelligentsia’s Black Cat seasonal espresso blend.

Gasoline Alley is part of the growing trend of coffee shops with strong links to cycling. It proudly announces this with a racing bike hanging above the counter and, as if to confirm the link, the Arc Racing Team stopped by for coffee while I was there, adding a certain frisson of excitement!

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South End Buttery

My cup of coffee surveys the bar at the back of the South End ButteryBoston’s South End Buttery is an excellent bakery/café that, until this visit, I had tabbed exclusively as a breakfast spot. Its breakfast offerings aren’t as extensive as some other establishments; mostly egg sandwiches on biscuit (American, not British) or bagel, with hot oatmeal as an alternative. I usually opt for the egg sandwich on a biscuit which never fails to satisfy while leaving space for lunch and dinner later in the day!

If you come for lunch there’s the usual range of sandwiches prepared while you wait and some tasty pastries to tempt you throughout the day. The South End Buttery changes a little in the evenings and at the weekends. Brunch is served on Saturdays and Sundays from 10:00 to 15:00, while the bar (see below) turns into restaurant from 17:30 onwards, staying open until 22:00 (23:00 Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays).

Since I’ve only ever been there on weekday mornings I can’t really comment on the merits or otherwise of it as a dinner/brunch spot. One day I’ll visit on the weekend and let you know!

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Charlie’s Sandwich Shoppe

Charlie's Sandwich Shoppe sign hangs proudly over the sidewalk on Columbus AvenueCharlie’s Sandwich Shoppe is my go-to breakfast place in Boston. Although my first visit was in 2003, I’ve only been a regular since 2011 (if visiting at least once during my annual trip to Boston makes me a regular that is!), which is when I started staying in Boston’s South End. Charlie’s is the quintessential family-run American diner, although it’s now in the hands of local chef, Evan Deluty. It’s so much a fixture of the neighbourhood that it’s even got its own Wikipedia page!

To the detriment of my waist-line, I’ve always been a fan of American breakfasts: fluffy, buttermilk griddle cakes, smothered in maple syrup; a plate full of eggs, fried potatoes with a couple of slices of toast; there are reasons why I put on half a stone whenever I go to America.

Charlie’s supplies these in abundance, along with bags of friendly atmosphere. It’s best experienced sitting on a bar-stool at the counter with a mug of coffee and enough food to last you for the day. There you can watch the regulars come and go, read the Boston Globe, or, increasingly these days, browse your smartphone or tablet. Not that Charlie’s has succumbed to the lure of wifi just yet…

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