Pop City Media interviewed us about our upcoming expansion, the Clover, and having more than one customer in our shop at a time - what a concept! Read more here…
Monthly Archive for May, 2007
Our Strip District shop will be open with limited hours on Monday 5/28/07. We will open at 8:00am and remain open until noon.
We will be closed downtown but will reopen at 7am Tuesday 5/29/07.
THE CLOVER IS COMING TO PITTSBURGH!
Once we complete our move to 50 21st Street in the Strip we’ll be the first shop in Pittsburgh and one of only a handful on the entire East Coast to feature the Clover 1s.
In short, the Clover is a single cup commercial grade coffee brewer. This is not something that you’ll find in an office or at Bed Bath & Beyond. This little machine makes THE BEST tasting coffee (yes even better than what we have today), which we will grind fresh to order, all in about 45 seconds.
We will publish more details as we get closer to our move, but essentially we will do away with “coffee of the day” and instead feature a menu of 6-10 different coffees, priced by the cup. You can choose your favorite coffee every single day and we will grind and brew it just for you in about a minute. We will also be able to do more cool things such as…
- Coffee cuppings/tastings
- “Flights” of coffees as you would enjoy flights of wine
- Brew a sample of a particular coffee so you can try it before you buy beans to take home with you
We’re very excited to be the first in Pittsburgh to offer this new technology. If you would like to learn more, visit Clover. In addition here’s a link to a recent article on the Clover 1s as it debuts in Los Angeles.
Exciting times ahead- rejoice brewed coffee drinkers!
Our new home in the Strip, once completed, will be 50 21st Street. The space sits on the southwest corner of 21st and Smallman. Every now and then I’ll post pictures updates as we do our best Bob Vila impression (imagine Bob Vila with a quad shot Americano- that’s how fast we want to get this done).
During the time that we’ve been in business at our current location we’ve seen two businesses come and go at 50 21st Street. The first was a hot dog/hamburger joint known as “Top Dog” (in the Strip). Most recently it was the hoagie shop “Fadz”. Each time a business left, customers would ask us when we would be taking over the spot. The first time it became available we were getting ready to open up the shop at the Frick Building. The second time, however, we were ready to go.
Since we’ll neither be grilling up dogs nor doing the hoagie thing there will be some changes to
the layout of the space. First up is to remove the commercial ventilation hood that backs up to the Smallman Street window. We think customers will like the seating we have planned for that side.
Next up is to remove the wall under the mezzanine to open things up. We plan on flipping the “kitchen” around to maximize our workspace as well as maximize the prime seating areas. The window on the 21st Street side will be a nice place for some tables so customers can sip their drinks while looking over at St. Stanislaus Church.
Speaking of the mezzanine, yeah we have one, and there will be plenty of room upstairs for more seating, perhaps a couch or two and some coffee tables (yes there are bathrooms, too). We’ll see about the television… maybe.
So today we stopped down briefly to lay out where the bar, cabinets, and equipment would fit. We taped everything off and did a reality check on some measurements. Also we put up some signs on the windows and took down the “For Rent” sign.
While there we ran into some of our regular customers. They mentioned how they’re always wondering where to go on Sundays for coffee since we’re currently closed. With minimal arm twisting we temporarily opened up the shop and made the following drinks:
- 20oz American Style Cappuccino with Raspberry (once you try it you can’t go back- one regular customer explains)
- 20oz Americano (that’s 4 shots of bold coffee goodness)
- 16oz Americano (a little less volume, so “only” 3 shots)
- 12oz Latte with 2% Milk (topped with a nice latte art-heart)
No brewed coffee for this impromptu shift. Of course since we were already there we made ourselves drinks (12 latte and 12oz 4 shot Americano) because, quite frankly, we don’t know where else to go to get coffee this good in our neighborhood.
Having said all that… once the new space is open we’ll give Sunday mornings a shot (no pun
intended). I hope to update the site again Monday after demolition starts.
LeftLane.org visits our shop in The Strip for a DOUBLE-double trad cap (actually two drinks with yes, whole milk, thank you). We love it when customers take the time to write about their positive experiences at our shops. We also like it when someone enjoys a drink so much that they order another round.