Please forgive my endless fascination with the evolution of the Avenew's dining, shopping, parking and non-existent entertainment options. Given the fire about BHS teachers, bond issues, "affordable housing", drought and high-cost rail, watching the Ave. can provide a little light relief on the Voice. Or not if someone gets worked up about the slowly dying Post Office building and the like. I stopped into the new Philz for my pour-over, $4.50 coffee recently. Being mostly a Bodum French press guy made at home, I was fascinated by the whole phenomenon.
Then yesterday's WSJ did a whole piece on "slow bar" coffee shops. That is the industry term. There are five methods--Chemex, French Press, Pour Over, Siphon and Aeropress listed in the article. The Journal describes the business decision between how long to make people wait for "slow coffee", how many staff to hire and how much to charge. Interesting stuff. They note that Starbuck's was the original gateway coffee to the hard stuff of pour over now in fashion. It will be interesting to see if Philz can maintain the momentum that Blue Bottle lost. The only time you don't wait in line is when they are closed!
Joe, this photo doesn't do the place justice, it is pretty nicely done inside, feels more Berkeleyish or downtown San Mateoish than Burlingame Aveish, and it is nice for a change. The outside looks fabulous. What a great rehab job; they get the gold star for commercial rehab, methinks. I've tried the coffee twice, yeah, wow, expensive, but I went with the "small" so ONLY had to spend $3.50 each time. The first one had hazelnut in it, so I gave it away (not a fan, and that was my own fault for not reading the description properly). The second one was really good, and not flavored, at least not very much. It just tasted yummy. I think it was called: The Best, or some other very forgettable name that I promptly forgot. It is true that it is slow, but unlike Blue Bottle pour through, this one survived the long pouring while staying really hot; that earns them more points in my book, since I love really hot (almost scalding) coffee...
Posted by: Jennifer | March 04, 2016 at 05:42 PM
I agree that they did a good job, Jen. I just like nocturnal images (you should see my office). The Journal article was very clear on the temperature for all this fancy coffee - 195 to 205 degrees F.
Posted by: Joe | March 04, 2016 at 08:15 PM
Guys, my fav is Tantalizing Turkish, which gets the Dickinson seal of approval. It's dynamite!!!
Posted by: Bruce Dickinson | March 04, 2016 at 09:58 PM