The decaf we sell is Swiss Water Process (SWP). 

We sell beans decaffeinated using SWP largely because customers who drink decaf routinely ask for this process by name. We believe this is because the folks who market SWP have branded it so well that customers think it's both tastiest and safest.

Unfortunately neither is true.  This article does a great job of discussing the benefits/flaws of the four major decaffeination processes.

We don't drink decaf ourselves so we haven't spent a lot of time thinking about it.  But as we're all about taste and transparency, looks like it's about time we revisited our options for decaf.

The more you know...

We had 19 for our Father's Day origin brunch yesterday.  Eight at the first seating, 11 at the second.  Enough to break even if you don't count the cook's hours.  We'd hoped for a full 24 and had enough for a couple of extra walk-ins. 

The response was uniformly positive.  The folks who came were delightful to speak with.  They had all sorts of questions about the food and were interested in some of the preparations and even some of the cultural background and how the dishes related to the four coffees we were serving.  We love to see that kind of interest.

As we were a few diners short of our goal, we ended up with a lot of leftovers, some of which were enjoyed by the afternoon shift.  We learned a few things on the way.  We found a better empanada dough recipe that we absolutely love.  Lime juice in coleslaw beats mayo or plain vinegar any day.  A well made tres leches cake kicks tiramisu's butt.  And yes, paying $19/lb for sashimi-grade ahi was worth it (and the ceviche alone is an $8 dish elsewhere, so we probably could've/should've charged more than $12 for the whole menu, but we're not doing this for profit alone).  Melinda, who grew up with this kind of food said it was the best she's eaten in ages.  And we've had her mom's cooking, so that's saying a lot.

But doing this kind of brunch is not something we can do regularly.  Nor want to.  Changing over from a casual coffee cafe to a hybrid buffet/full service restaurant isn't easy.  Dishes. Plating. Bussing. Remembering to take orders for coffee.  It's a different animal.  Carla spend almost the entire four hours she was there doing dishes.  God bless her (although she is the "new kid" and as such gets much of the dirty work).

In talking with our local food critic at the Sousa bbq last weekend, we mentioned the difficulty (and time!) of preparing a dozen dishes to serve 24 people on a two burner cooktop and a small convection oven.  She noted that even good cooks who are great at doing dinner parties can crumble from overreaching.  And that there are too many good cooks that just aren't suited for the restaurant business.

OK that's us.  But what fun is being conservative?

Doing the origin brunches is one of those love/hate relationships.  We love the idea and creating the message.  We love the menu planning and shopping.  We love serving interesting (and usually) delicious food.  And we especially love when it's over.

But cooking and coordinating the logistics?  Starts out fine, but by the third day of food prep, we vow to never do this again.  Kitchen duty that goes to 3am, 4am and midnight on consecutive nights can tax an otherwise hearty soul.  Advance prep is all but impossible due to lack of freezer space.  We're not even going into what that kind of time standing and cooking does feet, knees and back. 

And that's taking into account that this time went much smoother than last. It's easy to see how Gordon Ramsey ended up like he did.

Right now, Rich is on the back patio drinking a toast of single malt to all the professional chefs who choose this way of life and do it in a way that challenges our taste buds.  All respect to you men and women.  It's a hell of a way to make a living.

And as the pain fades, we're already thinking of the next one.  It'll be South America or East Africa. 

But not for awhile.

In case you missed it, Rich was quoted in Sunday's P-G as noting that Mt. Lebo residents are behind the times when it comes to social media technology. 

Of course that also means that 95% of our customers won't see this post.

We've tried to get more people to use RSS feeds to get our blog posts in the email inbox and to follow us on Twitter, but in an area with a distinctly older demographic, it's been an uphill climb and for Rich - who had a background in social media before joining Melanie at the shop - it's been frustrating. We admit to being envious of shops who have an audience that's tech-savvy, like Dozen in Lawrenceville or the taco trucks in LA.

We were among the first retail shops of any kind in Pittsburgh to adopt Twitter as it's such a simple way of communicating things like coffee or soup of the day or any other specials we're offering.  And you can get these tweets on your cell phone.  What could be easier?

As mentioned in the P-G article, fewer than 100 of our 585 current followers (we deleted a few folks) are locals.  We'd like to get that number up to at least a third of our total by the end of the year.  We're hoping that someday soon we'll see a tipping point where all of sudden there will be one big rush to get on board, even for 40, 50 and 60-somethings.

Meantime, those of you who are following us on Twitter might want to pay closer attention over the next couple of weeks.  It will be rewarding.