Category: Journal

Beatrice is the espresso machine. She is a lever machine, which makes her more opinion than appliance, and this morning her opinion is no. It happens when the air goes heavy. The group runs cool, the shots pull thin and sour, and no amount of talking to her helps. So we chalk a sign on […]

Every September someone asks when the pumpkin drinks start. The answer is never, and it is not a stunt. We roast what Number Nine gives us that morning and we write it on the board in chalk. That is the menu. There is no other menu. Some mornings the board says a bright washed Ethiopian, […]

Our hours say we open after the 8:14. People ask what that means, and the honest answer is that the 8:14 was a through freight that stopped running in 1971. We keep time by a train that has not come in more than 50 years. The Bracken Valley and Northern ran right past the building, […]

Number Nine is the roaster, a drum old enough to have a name and a temperament to match. She runs hot before noon and cool when it rains, and there is nothing in any manual about either, because there is no manual. There is Della, a notebook, and a great many mornings. A cool drum […]

This week’s Lintong came in a shade dark. Cedar and baker’s chocolate, the way it always reads, but with a longer, earthier finish that settles at the back of the cup and stays through the second sip. Della blames the rain. Number Nine blames no one. It is not a mistake and it is not […]

There was, for one regrettable week, a rotating carousel on the homepage. Bram built it on a slow Tuesday, the kind where Beatrice is down and a person needs something to do with his hands. It auto-played. It had arrows nobody pressed and dots nobody counted. It is gone now, and we do not discuss […]