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.