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Coffee
Situated right on that crazy confluence of Seventh, Carpenter, Kimball and East Passyunk, Falcon Café (1001 E. Passyunk Ave.) is a new gallery/coffeehouse from Marty Katzoff. Taking over a long-vacant storage space, the corner shop serves up a simple selection of coffee, espresso, tea and light bites, but Falcon's main function is highlighting local artists. Right now, painter and tattoo artist Katzoff, who created the mural outside the Baja Room at 15th and South, is starting by hanging work from local UArts and PAFA students, and will move into solo shows from local artists in the near future. They're open from 7 or 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, with later hours for openings or First Friday events. More pictures after the jump.
Photos: JC
Tonight from 6 to 10, Cooperage (Curtis Center, 123 S. Seventh St.) will host the 2011 release of Victory Village, a Victory Brewing Co. brown ale brewed in collaboration with Souderton's One Village Coffee. This lighter-bodied, 4.8 percent ABV ale, a hit when it debuted in 2010, is infused with One Village's Smart Blend Ethopian/Sumatra-Gayo coffee, lending the beer a mellow sweetness, along with hints of chocolate and some drier coffee notes.
Cooperage will pour pints of the beer, plus other Victory drafts (Moonglow Weizenbock, Festbier, Harvest Pils) for $5, and the kitchen will crank out coffee-inspired bites (espresso ribeye sliders, coffee-lacquered duck fingers). In case you eat/drink yourself to the point of passing out, One Village is also providing a firkin (yes, a firkin) of iced coffee at the bar to help you recharge. Victory Village is already available to purchase in growlers at the brewery's Downington headquarters, but they've also got a bunch of kegs they're looking to distribute to local bars soon.
Above: One Village's Rob Altieri and Woody Decasere with Victory founder/brewmaster Bill Covaleski (center).
Photo: victorybeer.com/blog
Old City's Double Shots Espresso Bar (211 Chestnut St.), a frequent Meal Ticket haunt due both to its sweetheart staff and geographic proximity to City Paper HQ, has changed its name. It's now known as Customs Coffee House, perhaps to be more congruous with the always-bustling US Customs Services building directly across the street. Nothing about the menu or interior has changed, and luckily, you do not have to wait in line for 72 hours to get coffee like you do when you need your passport expedited.
As Mother Nature ratchets up the heat index to hellish highs this week, Meal Ticket is looking for new ways to chill out. We may have found it on Monday, when a post on a.kitchen's blog clued us into a new bottled iced coffee from J.P. Iberti and Todd Carmichael of La Colombe. Today, Carmichael confirms the icy, inky beverage, dubbed Pure Black, is no passing caprice: "It's been a labor of love for me," he says. "It went public just last week."
The Colombe guys have been working on perfecting their cold-brew for a while. "[Our] cold-press method is very different from any other cold-press process," says Carmichael. "The grind steeps 16 hours in a stainless-steel wine tank, oxygen-free. Then [it’s] pressed, then the brew is gravity-fed through two filters, then bottled without oxygen."
But the most crucial factor in the realization of Pure Black has nothing to do with how it's prepared. "[It's] my wife's patience," Carmichael says. "For three months, I used everything at the house for cold-press experiments, from vases to pressure cookers, everything in the kitchen all full of steeping brews, plus a full-sized liquid nitrogen tank and O2 meters next to the fridge."
The result is a brew with freshness and clarity that tastes strong but not muddy, and certainly not watered down. And you don’t have to wait to try it. Says Carmichael, "A fresh batch will be delivered to both Philly cafés later today."
Philly's coffee-roasting community is small, no doubt, but it's growing. We recently told you about Fishtown's ReAnimator, and now there's a new microplayer on the way up north — Chris Molieri's GreenStreet Roasters, based at Broad and Girard. It's a brand-new operation and industry for Molieri, who developed a passion for roasting while working the financial services sector in Portland, Oregon; there, he put in a lot of time researching the bigger PDX players (Stumptown, Ristretto, etc.), eventually plunging into roasting thanks to some tutelage from the owner of Portland's Courier Coffee. Molieri, who started prepping green beans on a popcorn roaster before investing in a high-end Ambex setup, is starting off small, with a house blend and an espresso, but he plans on introducing single-bean varietals as well as a fair trade/organic blend in the near future. The roaster's also in talks with a number of cafés, restaurants and caterers to carry his products. "[I] am passionate about the specialty coffee world and optimistic about the growth of the specialty industry," says Molieri.
Over the past couple years, a number of high-quality coffeehouses have sprung up in Philly, but only a few are using locally roasted beans. The awesomely named ReAnimator Coffee, a new-to-the-scene micro-roaster, is looking to eke its way into that market, preparing single-origin beans (no blends!) sourced from Guatemala and Ethiopia at its Fishtown headquarters. (Just two varietals right now, but look for an espresso and an iced coffee product from them in the future.) Partners Mark Capriotti and Mark Corpus have their whole beans at NoLibs' Almanac Market (900 N. Fourth St.) right now, and it's the coffee of choice at the new Circles Cafe in Newbold. They should be popping up soon-ish at a few other local markets, as well. "We're not roasting super-dark," Capriotti says of ReAnimator's style. "Nothing near the style of Starbucks of La Colombe, sort of what's famous for quote-unquote gourmet coffee right now." Check them out on Facebook and Twitter.
We recently told you about the Artisanal by Plenty line of sandwiches for sale at Shot Tower Coffee (542 Christian St.), but they're not the only outside operation providing cheffy between-bread options at local cafés. Matt Levin of Adsum (700 S. Fifth St.) recently began providing sandwiches for Evan Inatome's Elixr (207 S. 15th St.) — peep a waldorf chicken salad or a wasabi-mayo'd egg salad every day, each priced at $8. The new OCF Coffee House at 18th and South, meanwhile, is using charcuterie and smoked product from North South Canning Company & Meatery (the imprint started by Wishing Well chef Carmen Cappello and 'cue man Mark Coates) to put together its line of sandwiches. Hit up OCF for North South smoked salmon with red onion, red pepper and cheese; or prosciutto with smoked mozzarella, red peppers and balsamic, either served on Wild Flour Bakery bread.
The loyalty card — you know, "buy nine tuna sandwiches, get the 10th free!" — is a time-honored practice at food/drink operations of all stripes, the coffee game being no exception. But now a group of Philly bean brewers are teaming up to encourage extremely disloyalty within their customer base. Seven local coffee houses — Chestnut Hill Coffee Co. (8620 Germantown Ave.), Spruce Street Espresso (1101 Spruce St.), Lovers & Madmen (28 S. 40th St.), Ultimo Coffee (1900 S. 15th St.), Town Hall Coffee Co. (358 Montgomery Ave., Merion), Shot Tower Coffee (542 Christian St.) and Bodhi Coffee (410 S. Second St.) — are now carrying cards for "Philly's Disloyalty Program." The deal: Purchase a pourover coffee at each of these spots and earn a punch. Once you've got seven punches, you can redeem the card at any of the seven participating cafés for a free pourover cup. Nice little way to tour through all the area's best caffeinated options and come out with a little something to show for it.
Bobby Dombrowski quietly opened his South Philly coffee shop Strange Brew (1321 S. Second St.) this past Friday. The Pennsport native's Second-and-Wharton operation, which we first mentioned in March, is serving Counter Culture coffee and espresso, and they'll soon introduce a selection of light sandwiches and so forth via Le Bus. It's a narrow space but there are multiple seating areas, including a communal table inside and a open-air back patio; Dombrowski, a Kid Robot head, has a chunk of his vinyl toy selection showcasead around the shop. Ask for one of Strange Brew's swipeable "Shakespeare" cards — think As You Like It — which'll track your drink preferences and qualify you for free cups. The shop is open from 6:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays, with a later, TBD opening time on the weekends.
We first made note of MilkBoy's plans to open a Center City café/bar/music venue waaaay back in December 2009. Though they have run into more than a few speed bumps in their efforts to open (perhaps you're familiar with the unions in town?), the Ardmore-based coffee house and recording studio is poised to open its 11th-and-Chestnut Philly digs as early as June 10 — or, depending on construction delays, closer to the first week of July. Those estimates come via MilkBoy Communications, the brand's newly minted PR hub.
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