Milwaukee Specialty Food and Coffee

Preview: Retail Coffee: Great Plains Coffee Trifecta Blend

It was only a matter of time until my next order from Great Plains Coffee Company, and that time has come sooner rather than later.  This week's pound will be the Trifecta Blend.  As stated in their blog, the blend is primarily intended for espresso, but I plan to also brew it as drip coffee.  I continue to be over the moon about the Ethiopia Beloya.  I'm going to brew some for my Dad tonight while I visit my parents and see what he says about it; tomorrow, my boss will be treated.

Music: Reviews: Yes @ Riverside Theater

Because today was probably the last nice day in a while, I did a lot of walking and am pretty beat.  So I'll be lazy and just copy and paste what I wrote on Yesfans:

Am I first out of the gate? I live only a half-hour (on foot) away, so...

No intermission, no Parallels, no Soon.

That being said, it was a very strong opening (as I've already concluded about this tour) and momentum stayed high.

Benoit's vocal performance was as strong as ever but his onstage persona is flamey. (I'll go ahead and use that word because we all know the real story.) No intermission meant Ridiculous Outfit stayed on the whole show. I can't believe they decided he needed a makeover and changed. . .the haircut.

Oliver started off good, but I remain distracted by the, in part, ridiculous patches. There's one in CTTE (three notes right before the slammin' part) and one in Machine Messiah (also towards the end) that were especially jarring.

I guess the biggest surprise was Howe much SH's set did for me, especially the first piece. I always used to pretty much yawn through those. First two were new to me, and I've heard a lot of bootlegs in addition to the shows I've attended. The crowd seemed really respectful.

My background is about ten or so shows from 1997 though 2002. . .hard to do anything close to an A/B comparison, but this go-round seems really tight. I think generally I'm just disappointed by the decline of concert etiquette. I can't believe the amount of standing up and walking around. I think we, as a society, are at the point where we need ADD medication added to the drinking water! *LOL*

Snaphot: Starbucks

For the past couple months, I've been going to Starbucks more, in part because the service and atmosphere seemed more congenial and the product seemed to be improving.  Now, a good deal of doubt has been cast on all of that.  After the Ethiopia Beloya, the curve is massively messed up.  A cup of coffee that invites being inhaled has now become the standard.  As is only natural, since I feel so strongly about the experience, I want to share it with others.

Music: YES Day is Here!

I know where I'll be tonight! Looks like it is near sold out, but there are a precious few seats remaining.

Retail Coffee: Great Plains Coffee Ethiopia Beloya Selection Nine

Today, I opened my 12 oz. package of Ethiopia Beloya Selection Nine from Great Plains Coffee. It's labelled as Coffea in honor of the company's soon-to-open roastery/cafe in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.  As soon as I ground the coffee, an intoxicating aroma filled the room, and by the time the pot finished brewing, the office smelled like I'd made blueberry pancakes.  Though only the second most expensive bag of coffee I've purchased, it's by far the best.

Great Plains' owner, Jon Brudvig, personally signed a little note on the accompanying invoice.  Jon posts insightfully on industry forums such as this thread on coffeed.com.

East Side/Riverwest: Snapshots: Crack Friday

Just when you thought after 18 months, I wouldn't have any new stories to tell. Ha! So I'm at Starbucks eyeing up this girl (okay, nothing new about that) who, after picking up her drink, sits down in one of the comfy chairs—which, alas, doesn't have armrests. While doing so, she flashes about six inches of gluteal cleft, and I'm not exaggerating. Obviously, underwardrobe was either not present or severely malfunctioning due to her low-cut jeans. While she sat, she showed about an inch of cleavage, and not the kind I enjoy seeing. This is a very tightly-packed Starbucks location, and every, er, seat in the joint was taken (I won't specify the location to protect the guilty; use your imagination).

I guess my question is: at what point does an ethical duty of notification exist? Is there a Good Samaritan law that applies here? Should I carry around a blanket in my laptop case, ready to be draped gallantly around the inadvertently exposed in such emergencies? I mean, heaven knows how often I walk around with my fly open or whatever. Hopefully I could take a discreet heads-up in the right spirit. In the age of the Internet and globalization, sadly, the fashion moat around Milwaukee that used to keep such ill-suited wardrobe choices safely at bay no longer exists. (You'd think the driver of the truck loaded with low-rise jeans would have the good sense to turn around when he saw the Kopp's billboard. And I'll stop right there.)

Editorial: Do Buy Locally (If You Want To)

Happy Thanksgiving!  After yesterday's post, I want to discuss the other side of the coin.  In my critique of local businesses, you'll notice that I left out any direct mention of Milwaukee's coffeehouses.  This is because two businesses stand out in my mind as examples of how to respond to the competitive pressures posed by national chains.  These two are Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops and Alterra Coffee. (Though obviously not a coffee shop, Schwartz has cafes in at least two of its stores--serving Alterra, natch.)  In Schwartz's case, the advent of the giant booksellers forced it to dump a couple of loser locations and open up new winning ones.  Believe it or not, I'm an urbanite at heart and I always thought it so cool that we had a bookstore--and such a good one--at arguably the city's main intersection, almost right at the crossing of its directional baselines.  I'm sure it was equally painful for the business itself to let it go, but business pressures didn't allow for nostalgia, and the location was closed in the mid-1990s.

Alterra, to my knowledge, never had to close a store, but around the time Starbucks went mass-market and became a serious presence in Milwaukee, it started offering a light food menu of soups, salads and sandwiches.  I wouldn't venture to guess what portion of its business those offerings now account for, but I know it must be significant, especially at the Bayshore location.  

This is strictly anecdotal, but Beans & Barley also seems to be better off for the presence of a national chain competitor, Whole Foods, nearby.  I go in to Beans about once a week, even if just to use the restroom, and it's seemed busier the last couple years.  Some months after its opening, Whole Foods just started giving me the heebie-jeebies in a big way, mostly because of how eerily deserted it usually is.  Maybe it's the fake cafe which, I'm now convinced, is there strictly for show.  Whenever I'd buy a drink, the counter person would seem vaguely shocked and announce that she couldn't ring me up because she didn't have a register drawer.

In a way, I'm disappointed that Alterra would be at the forefront of "Buy Local" efforts--they wouldn't seem to need that crutch.  They can stand tall against Starbucks based on the businesses' relative merits.  I might add that Starbucks also does not seem like the most formidable of competitors, though that might be just looking through the prism of the last couple years.

Editorial: Don't Buy Locally (If You Don't Want To)

As it has been doing with increasing frequency, the Shepherd Express editorializes this week on the "need" to spend money locally.  When these articles are run in the local media, there's a group of usual suspects whose names often appear: Outpost, which is not a bad place, but has exorbitant prices in my experience; Nehring's Sendik's, which just has exorbitant prices...and the list goes on.  I guess my compassion fatigue for Milwaukee's mostly underperforming local businesses set in long ago, particularly those within Milwaukee County. Consider the vibrant local coffeehouse scene in a place like Madison.  Granted, that city has UW, but even after factoring that in, a metropolitan area with a million-plus population like Milwaukee seems to call for more. 

Editorial: What I'm Thankful For - 18 Months, 20,000 Hits

Though I also have much greater blessings in my life, I'm thankful for the fact that this website celebrates eighteen months of existence and 20,000 page views this week.  These milestones arrive almost more quickly than I can remember to watch for them!

Glendale/Whitefish Bay: Snapshots: Stone Creek Whitefish Bay

I'm at Stone Creek Coffee's location on E. Silver Spring Dr. in Whitefish Bay. The coffee of the day, the Market Day Blend, is extraordinary.  I've just launched into my second mug.  It's 5:49 p.m. on the day before Thanksgiving, and you can already sense the sidewalks being rolled up here in the Bay.  The feeling of torpor in these wealthy suburbs can be overwhelming.  I'm not sure I see the point in accumulating a lot of money, only to live your life as if in a trance.