Results matching “stumptown”

It's been two weeks now since Portland coffee mecca Stumptown opened its first local shop inside the Ace Hotel. And while the third wave coffeeshop is generally known for its beans, it seems to be the baristas getting all the attention. Last week's Times review noted one having "the bone structure of a male model" and said the staff looking so cool they probably "skateboard to work." Now Eater finds reactions from those complaining about "horrible attitude, great coffee" to one who is excited to be served by a "sexypants with the floor plans for tattoos." Have you been there yet?

• From the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on Atlantic Ave in Brooklyn, a boat in distress at Rockaway Blvd in Queens and a car vs building at 10th Ave and 42nd St in Manhattan.
• Six people were able to leap to safety when their boat began sinking in the Raritan Bay off the coast of Staten Island this morning.
• A Jersey City woman led police on a 150-mile chase along the Jersey Turnpike last night while holding a passenger in her car against their will.

Cafe Grumpy first opened the doors of its Greenpoint location in late 2005. A year later, they opened a store in the heart of Chelsea with an eye-catching Clover machine that gained them much more visibility and buzz for having some of the best coffee around. Grumpy began making a name for themselves as one of a handful of places around town (along with Ninth Street Espresso and Gimme! Coffee) that were bringing New York a serious coffee culture, the kind that the west coast has gained a reputation for over the years. Now the rep they've built themselves—recently having won Best Coffee in NYC in the Time Out New York Eat Out Readers Poll—is sure to grow even further with the newest store they've just opened on 7th Avenue in Park Slope.

The Houston Street DKNY mural wasn't the only thing painted brown in the last few days: a solitary worker has rolled a couple of coats on the squat Red Hook building where the Delightful Coffee Shop will soon open. The old “Eating and Art Conditioning” sign is gone, signaling that the Stumptown cafe (to be operated in tandem with the Frankies) is getting closer to completion. Stumptown plans to roast beans for their local clients in a cast iron Probat located in the same space.

When Daniel Boulud and Jim Leiken started putting the new restaurant DBGB together, they decided one hamburger would be topped with pulled pork. Rather than to start recipe testing, the chefs decided to use Daisy May's pork and serve the whole thing on a cornbread-cheddar bun. It's like the restaurant world's version of a co-operative: Chefs and restaurants are outsourcing a lot of ingredients from other restaurants these days. Take Kyle Bailey's Lower East Sliders on the bar menu at Allen & Delancey, for example: the pickle is Guss's, the salami is Katz's, and the Grafton Cheddar is from nearby Saxelby Cheesemongers.

One longtime Starbucks in Astor Place (well, one of them—the one with a garden on the corner of Third and Astor) is closing tomorrow night. While the eulogies are pouring in from in the comments sections (Eater is even assembling an “insta oral history” of the location in order to virtually bronze all the macchiato memories), no one seems to be sure what will happen to the building tomorrow after the last pitcher of milk is steamed. Some say the Starbucks, which has at least three other perfectly viable locations within a short walking distance, is simply "being moved, and the building re-purposed.” Others are declaring a belated victory for Reverend Billy. Others still are saying that, as promised, Stumptown Coffee’s Duane Sorenson “has come to save you (and the rest of New York) from inferior house brew,” and may be thinking of setting up shop in the location. Okay, so that’s just wishful thinking. For many, the Astor Place Starbucks (on the corner of Third Avenue, not the other one) was the scene for many double tall rites of passage-y precious moments, and will always be remembered for its always shorter bathroom line.

Lesser coffee shops looking to sell snacks would pave a fleet of cupcakes with a demure cream cheese frosting and adorn the space around the register with a silent army of gluten. The new “Frankies” establishment, Cafe Pedlar, follows no such bake sale aesthetic. Bundt seems to be the word of the day: lemony olive oil cakes ($3) are mini bundt-doughnuts, and banana spelt bread slices are cut from a bundt crown. Coffee and cappuccino, from Stumptown, take time, and even more if you distract the baristas working a digital timer and a tamper. As mentioned previously, “the Franks” have refashioned the old tessellated Margaret Palca Bakes space into some kind of Viennese coffee shop. The coffee is not rushed, and if one of the 10 or so seats is available, take it, and take your time. The symmetrical steamed milk designs that grace the top of your drink are the new inkblots, and the coffee is good.

If you've spent any time in gentrified Brooklyn lately, you've surely noticed a certain theme developing in what might be called "urban atavistic" restaurants, a sort of Brooklyn-by-gaslight aesthetic. Parlors, waistcoats, snuff boxes, and tie tacks have lined up like Lucky Charms; every new restaurant is at least 20% salvaged from the beams of some building that was once filled with dumbwaiters and people who started sentences with the words “I dare say.”

Second Stop: Gimme Coffee might want to give you a price break; seems there's now a bit of competition nearby. Located on Lorimer Street near the L station, Second Stop (pictured) brews Portland's acclaimed Stumptown Coffee and serves pastries (including vegan varieties) prepared by former Le Bernardin baker Merrin Frazier. Grub Street has photos and says the décor "elevates Second Stop above your standard coffeehouse. Lamps are from JP Morgan's Wall Street office; table bases are from the Oak Room of the Plaza Hotel, tile work was done with century-old tile from vestibules and foyers in brownstones around NYC, and the fireplace mantel was salvaged from Johnny Depp's townhouse in the West Village." 24 Lorimer Street, (718) 486-6850

The recalculated red hotness of Red Hook came in the form of a Fall food and drink preview dedicated strictly to the neighborhood in last week’s Time Out, written up with an ersatz, vaguely Swedish alphabet meant to evoke IKEA label kookiness. Among the umlaut-heavy listings was one for Stumptown Coffee’s first New York store, which will reportedly open in the former heating and air conditioning place seen here, at 219 Van Brunt Street. Some time back, the old lettering on the storefront was unrelatedly and strategically repainted to memorialize its humble machine shop beginnings: It now reads “Eating and Art Conditioning.” It’s a funny welcome for a coffee shop known for taking good care of its beans, and equally for displaying works by local artists.

A small hotel chain that got some ink spilled about it last year in The NY Times, The Ace Hotel, will now bring its charm to New York. They're currently setting up shop at 29th and Broadway, and bringing a Stumptown Coffee (a favorite amongst Pacific Northwesters) with it. The grand opening will be in Winter 08/09, and it will come with a new restaurant from the people behind The Spotted Pig. The Ace tell us a little bit about what to expect:

Ace is the low card and the high card. Our basic rooms are affordable but replete with cool amenities. Our big suites offer all the luxury you would expect from a high-end hotel. Ace Hotel New York is improvisational, a mix of styles, historical periods and objects that come together in layers. The hotel’s design takes its cues from the vibrancy of street life, the honesty of materials and the potential of invention. It is about soul, latent in the old architecture and re-introduced through the new design.

Hotel Chatter got a first look at the New York Ace, and says the rooms have a residential feel, and the one model room opened included a "full size SMEG refrigerator (think That 70's Show) stocked with goods from local NYC names like Brooklyn Brewery." They just got some renderings together (below), and to get a real feel what it's going to be like, check out their rooms in Portland and Seattle...which are nicer, and larger, than some NYC apartments.