Milwaukee Specialty Food and Coffee

Late Night Coffee: East Side/North Shore

As far as I know, there's no late night coffee to be had anywhere east of I-43 or anywhere near the East Side/North Shore area.  The sidewalks get rolled up at 10 p.m.  The only exception I know of is Caribou at Bayshore Town Center, which is open until 11 on Friday and Saturday nights.

The only recommendation I could offer is this here Starbucks at 27th & Oklahoma, which is open  from 5 a.m.  to  11 p.m.  Gosh, it would suck to have a close/open here!  To reach this store, especially if you're close to the lake, your best bet is to take the Lake Parkway to Oklahoma, then go the two or so miles west to 27th.  Otherwise, take I-43/94 south to the Holt exit.

Snapshots: 27th & Oklahoma Starbucks

I'm back at 27th & Oklahoma.  The furniture here gets rearranged with mind-boggling regularity.  (I'm now sitting at a regular table where the two guys in Monday's picture were.)  Four teenage girls, barely older than my niece, are sitting at the other end of the seating area swearing up a storm and talking about group fights (!).  I don't think I'll be pointing the webcam at them, as any one of them could probably take me.  As an aside, this Starbucks must see more foul language than any other in the world (unless Big Green has expanded into prisons).

This reminds me that I would rather castrate myself than have kids that I would have to send to MPS, so I better get my shit together financially.  Send your contributions to 18. . .

Snapshots: Oakland Gyros on Layton

I'm at Oakland Gyros' 530 W. Layton Ave. location, which I infinitely prefer to the older one.  This place has an expanded menu, accepts credit cards, features a spatious, bright and updated interior and, for those so inclined, a drive-thru.  (Apparently, also very clean restrooms.) Improbably, classical music plays loudly in the background, as if someone accidentally bumped the muzak machine too many times.  What really keeps me coming back is a dish unique to this location, Pepper Chicken ($8.10), which features real natural chicken and a sauteed mixture of onions, red peppers and mushrooms. Portions, like those at the home base, are gargantuan—the aforementioned pepper chicken with rice is three meals for more. There is a gas station-style coffee station with a few airports of different varieties of coffee (it's serviceable).  No Wi-Fi, though, so I'll have to copy this over from an OpenOffice document later.

Editorial: Tips For Coffeehouse Owners

1.) Don't allow employees on your premises when they are not scheduled to work—not even as paying customers—unless you have asked them.  Nothing like an impromptu employee meeting in your absence.  You run the risk of employees loudly disrespecting your business and advertising its woes, even when the place is filled with customers.

2.) To spread the blame evenly: do a little due diligence and don't, for example, be the 18th guy to open up a coffeehouse by UWM when there are already 17 within a half-mile radius.

Contest: Genesis 14 From Our Past CD Giveaway - Deadline Extended

I'm giving away a copy of the Starbucks Genesis CD, 14 From Our Past.  To win the CD, write a comment here, either telling me why you deserve to win the CD or about coffee, or some combination of the two!  Also tell 10 of your friends about this site.

Contest ends January 20th at noon CST.

Music: The Musical Box

When I next see The Musical Box a week from Friday, I won't have to attempt to throw darts while sober as I did at their concert in Duisburg, Germany on October 31.  (Um, objects in the photo are not as close as they appear—lest you think I'm a total retard!)

Specialty Coffee Drinks: Starbucks to Retrofit its Espresso Machines

Starbucks is retrofitting their espresso machines, the super-automatic do-it-alls that create Big Green's "crafted" beverages. Discussion of the retrofit over on Starbucks Gossip makes mention of EEPROMs and such.  Hopefully the Jetsonian machines will now be better able to exploit the capacity of their beans—which is rather limited, if Kenneth Davids' Coffee Review is any authority.  Search the reviews for "Starbucks" and chuckle at the number of times the word "burned" comes up.  Tellingly, Caribou's Decaf Espresso earned a stellar 94 points, while Starbucks' regular Espresso blend earned 85.  Generally, the discrepancy between Caribou and Starbucks ratings is remarkable.  All the more reason why Caribou's lack of business success tops my list of "Things that make you go hmmmm. . ."

Snapshots: Alterra Foundry

I have some kind of a problem with the Wi-Fi here that logs me out intermittently, so that when I write a blog post, e-mail, etc., I often lose my work because I have to log back in to Ethostream.  It's happened several times, on two different computers.

Snapshots: Fuel Cafe

I'm at a landmark that has been conspicuously absent from this website until now, the Fuel Cafe. The main reason is that I am an inveterate user of plastic, and until recently, the Cafe did not take credit cards.  I'm pleased to note that they now accept them, except Discover (despite the sticker in the window; most cafes don't take Discover, presumably due to higher fees).  In addition, I used to hang out here in its early days, so it remains indelibly associated with a certain time period for me.

Inflation has largely passed by Fuel. As I recall, an in-house cup of coffee went for $1.10 in 1993, with quarter refills.  Now, contrary to the prices stated on the website, it is $1.25 with 50-cent refills (tax included!).   The coffee comes from Alterra--in fact, the delivery guy came while I was here.

Snapshots: 27th & Oklahoma Starbucks

I got out of work late tonight and wanted to do a little surfing, so I'm back at "my" old Starbucks, the S. 27th St. and Oklahoma Ave. location.  (Unlike most other locations, it stays open until 11 p.m. to serve third-shift workers at St. Luke's.)  The guys pictured here are, interestingly, doing some kind of medical homework together, but with Tony Soprano-like use of the F word.

The music is all-Christmas, all the time.  I'm not one of those people for whom Christmas rings hollow because, due to depression or some other reason, they don't feel the way they're "supposed to" when the holiday rolls around.  Rather, I feel genuine rage against the machine.  I desperately want to tie Disney into this somehow--like President Bush trying to implicate Saddam Hussein for 9/11, I won't rest until I can prove that Hannah Montana is responsible for the commercialization of Christmas ;-)