The Coffee Studio

Where have we gone?

2010-01-28T10:50:00.003-06:00

We're still here... making coffee. It's just that full on blogging is so 2008.

Just kidding!

For more current updates, please follow us on Twitter or Facebook or our website thecoffeestudio.com

Hope to see you around the shop!

- Lee and Miguel

Smart peeps unite!

2008-10-28T12:37:00.003-06:00

Yup, Scrabble Night is back.

Wednesday Nov. 5th: 6:30pm - 8:30pm.

Are you awesome? Maybe you'll win a copy of the book, Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players, or maybe you'll just drink some great coffee, have some tasty snacks, meet some smart people and have some wordy fun.

So pass the word around (heh-heh), 'cause the more the merrier!

(This event is free.)

Friday: Andersonville's 'Night of 100 pARTies!'

2008-09-30T19:31:00.003-06:00

Friday, October 3rd is the launch of Andersonville Arts Weekend (October is Chicago Artists Month!) with opening receptions at many of the sixty Andersonville businesses hosting artwork, including The Coffee Studio.

Come by between 6.00pm and 9.00pm this Friday evening for our artists reception and check out the work of Justin Santora, Robert C. Anderson and Curtis Staiger. Then mosey on through the whole neighborhood and discover more parties and performances that will be lighting up the entire neighborhood.

More information at: http://www.andersonville.org/artsweekend

Scrabble Night @ The Coffee Studio

2008-09-23T12:32:00.003-06:00

Wednesday, October 1st is our first ever Scrabble Night at The Coffee Studio. All skill levels are welcome (we'll try not to match newbies to world champions, of course). Boards and dictionaries provided. We'll be giving out tips and tricks for novices and sweet prizes for those who got game. Come on, you smarties, don't miss it!

The Coffee Studio is located at 5628 N Clark St. in Andersonville.
Open 6.30am to 9pm everyday.
www.thecoffeestudio.com
(This event is free.)

Heads Up: Bicycle Film Festival 2008 - Chicago! (Aug 6-10)

2008-08-01T08:00:00.005-06:00

Most of you probably know by now but we're big, big bike fans around here.

We hosted a bicycle-related art show and party a few months ago during Andersonville Bike Week, we participated in the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation Commuter Challenge last month and a pretty good share of our rock-star baristas (and a lot of our coolio customers, too) pedal their way to The Coffee Studio everyday!

So, we're also proud to be a sponsor of the 8th Annual Bicycle Film Festival.
Check it out:

Bicycle Film Festival 2008, Chicago!
August 6 - 10 at Columbia College.

The Bicycle Film Festival is a celebration of bicycles through film, art and music.
All screenings take place at Columbia College, 1104 S. Wabash, 8th floor.

Valet bicycle parking provided by Chicagoland Bicycle Federation at all screenings.

For more information, visit http://bicyclefilmfestival.com/2008_site/chicago/

General Schedule:

free mac troubleshooting/tutoring at The Coffee Studio

2008-07-11T12:29:00.008-06:00

head's up, you Apple freaks...

macucation will be at The Coffee Studio on Tuesday, July 22nd from 6-8pm offering free Macintosh maintenance, troubleshooting and tutoring.

just bring yo' mac, drink somethin' delicious, get 'fixed' or get smarter. that's all there is to it.

tell your Apple-ey friends.

peace.

We're hiring...

2008-06-23T11:36:00.001-06:00

The Coffee Studio is ready to hire and train some new baristas. Woo-hoo!

Check out our Employment page for more info.

BIKE LOVE Party - Friday, May 16th

2008-05-08T16:36:00.004-06:00

In coordination with Andersonville Bike Week (May 12-18), we are hosting "BIKE LOVE: a graphic celebration of the bicycle", a multi-artist display of cycle-inspired artwork from May 10 to June 9th, 2008.

And that means a party...

Join us for a chill artists' reception and Bike Week celebration on Friday, May 16th from 6.30pm to 9.30pm at the shop.

(Super dope photo courtesy of the pseudo-Danish Mr. Jun Lee. Thank you, sir!)

Imbibe

2008-04-23T15:56:00.005-06:00

It's pretty cool when a national magazine you think is pretty cool thinks you're pretty cool too:

design blogs to while away a rainy monday...

2008-03-31T09:26:00.004-06:00

Thought I might pass along a link to a newish little blog that's heavy on design AND Andersonville (two of my fa-vor-ite things). You can start with a nice little review of our humble Studio.

Speaking of design blogs and Andersonville... Larry over at Scout down the street (who happens to be one of our regulars) got a nice little mention on designwatcher, a blog you might like.

And just in case you're still looking to waste some time reading about coolio stuffs, maybe head on over to Apartment Therapy-Chicago, where they're in the middle of an 8-week (Spring) Home Cure. I just bought the book and it full of great, practical perspectives on design and creating a holistically healthy "home".

WE R CHICAGO

2008-02-11T18:17:00.001-06:00

apparently.

thanks, guys!

finally... the building power upgrade work

2008-02-05T16:08:00.000-06:00

I know it will be better soon, but boy is bad right now...

It's a miracle any of our customers can even see that we're open, let alone fight their way into the shop and then put up with the intermittent jackhammering and dust storms.

Serenity now...
Serenity now...

joe who?

2008-01-18T17:22:00.001-06:00

*smiles*

We got this nice little write-up in the food section of the Tribune this Wednesday.

For the record, not all of our baristas are bearded.

Time Out... Critics' Picks

2008-01-10T12:53:00.000-06:00

Yay!!!

Ahhhh....

2008-01-03T09:02:00.000-06:00

Finally a chance to take a deep breath...

Nice.

So... Happy New Year from our Happy New Coffee Shop!

We're alive and well, closing up our fourth week of being open for business. I guess tomorrow is the start of our fifth week, though I swear that must have been the fastest four weeks ever!

We already have quite the cadre of regulars, and of course we want to thank all you guys who have posted to the blog or come by the shop to check it out and meet us. It's been our pleasure, for sure, and we hope to see more of you!

Now that we've got the basics down (e.g. aren't running out of milk, coffees and pastries every other day!), we're regrouping and figuring out how to do what we're doing even better. Our staff has been awesome, very flexible and patient, and they're all learning by leaps and bounds which is amazing to watch.

We've got a lot of work still ahead of us, but now that Miguel and I are at least sleeping and eating more like human beings, anything seems possible!

Other stuff in the works:
We're still down a Robur grinder... we see signs of ComEd around the place, but no promised electrical upgrade delivery date yet!

Our full exterior signage is still waiting on our contractors/trades' schedules, but we might put up some temporary signage to get a bit more street visibility.

More descriptive interior signage/informative descriptions/explanations is in the plan too... hope to find some time for it soon.

Developing our ongoing training program/coffee eduction plan. We're on our way to everyone at meeting our minimums, now we try to figure out how to get to the maximums!

Marketing.... letting people know we're here! We've got some press in the works and we'll be brainstorming how to focus our efforts. Hopefully a "Grand Opening" shin-dig will be a part of this.

Other stuff. Office stuff. Money stuff. Taxes stuff. Vendor stuff. Staff stuff. You know... running-a-coffee-shop-stuff.

I'll tell you though, all that stuff... SO much better than waiting-on-utilities-stuff!!! The "yay!" still hasn't gone away yet. Yay! Yay! Yay!

So come on by. We'll be smiling. We'll do coffee.

open!!!

2007-12-09T11:02:00.000-06:00

no time for posting, kids! we opened friday.

customers are kickin' our butts. it's awesome!

but we're running out of coffee, milk, pastries, singles... i have to go run to the bank right now (my scary first time leaving the shop since we've been open - yes, we're open from 6.30am to 9pm!).

it's been a week of 21 hour days (literally), and plenty of scrambling... but the team is kickin' it and the customers seem totally psyched! so, yah!

we're all (sleepy) smiles.

gotta go... hope to see you all soon. cheers!

counting down...

2007-12-04T13:44:00.000-06:00

Oh, you wonderful coffee drinkers (and neighbors and friends)... we have not forgotten you. Rather, we are scrambling to bring you an open coffee shop this week!

Yes. Really. The gas and phone were finally connected exactly a month ago, and we gave up on waiting for the building's electrical upgrade. So we've been at a run... overwhelmed with applications and trying to get all our ducks in a row for ya's.

We now have our great new staff (you're gonna love 'em!), and we're doing everything we can to get this baby up and running by the end of the week!

So... no time to dilly-dally, talking about it. It's pedal-to-the-medal, no-sleep-til-Brooklyn, holy-*bleep*-time around here!

Keep an eye on the windows, and hopefully we'll see you on Friday for some delish coffees!

PS- In a cruel twist of fate, the electrical upgrade for the building that we've been waiting on for ten months is apparently also planned to start this week... so disastrous, outside-the-shop, street tearing-up may also be on the menu for our "grand opening" week or two. C'est la vie!

See you soon!

Bonus Points

2007-11-08T17:58:00.000-06:00

Jack-of-all-trades/Renaissance Man (Bloke?) James Hoffman, who just happens to be from my mother (and father) country and ok, who also happens to be the reigning World Barista Champion (ok, and a ridiculously good photographer, and a sweet musician... love the Bonobo remix in partcular BTW, but enough with the over-achieving already!) is pretty darn smart and brags about it on his blog all the time (just kidding!). No, he's really doing a pretty inspirational job pushing the limits of research and critical thinking about two things I find pretty fascinating personally, coffee and food science (/sometimes molecular gastronomy).

Anyway, I'm crazy busy today, so I don't have time to thoroughly read or think through this post of his noodling on extraction versus strength (which just popped up in my reader today), though I'd sure like to.

So, since I'm pretty sure some of you folks who may have been poking around on the newly very popular employment page on our website, may have poked around enough to end up over here at the blog. If so, you're probably on the right track. We're all about curious minds. ~~So I'm not sayin' anything about checkin' out "JimSeven"'s post and summarizing or commenting about it here, I'm just sayin'...~~

(Actually, scrub that.) Just go poke around for fun... this guy's the epitome (and thankfully, you don't have to be this hardcore)!

PS- Sorry about all the asides... I think I may actually have drunk too much coffee today!

PPS- Oh, and shout-outs to Tony and co. at Metropolis today for top spot in the coffee showdown in the Trib today! Yay for good coffee! (You 2, Intelly!)

ta-da... we're hiring!

2007-11-06T13:07:00.000-06:00

Yup, finally.

As of yesterday, we have phone service!!! Boy, have I ever been so happy to hear a dial tone.

And that means that this show is finally on the road (we're actually still on temp power, but "c'est la vie"...we'll work around it!).

So, tell all your coffee (and non-coffee) peeps to send good people our way.

We're super excited to finally be back on track and just want to thank all you supportive folks for being so dang nice along the way.

Wish us luck!

hello all you beautiful patient peoples...

2007-10-25T12:05:00.001-06:00

Unbelievably, (and quite sadly, frankly,) another month is coming to a close without The Coffee Studio being open. Many of you have let us know how much you want us to be open. We're glad to hear it, and let me make it quite clear to the rest of the universe... we really want to be open too!!!

We're doing as much as is in our power to get open, but unfortunately, these utility issues are simply out of our hands. We are now over a year behind our original schedule. At every point however, we've been told that things 'will be happening' within a week or two... it's actually been really quite draining to be in this constant prep mode. If we had known the building construction would take this long, we would have paced ourselves better (and probably gotten a better lawyer). But we're practicalists (is that a word?), and so we're here, doing our best to deal with the situation we're in and trying to stay positive and optimistic.

So now, the good news:

Yes, I have never been so happy to see a construction crew! These fine fellows finally arrived yesterday to dig up the street to repair the broken conduit between the AT&T manhole and our building. Once they're done, AT&T can come back and hook up the building. And then some other AT&T people can come back and hook up The Coffee Studio's space with phone and DSL. Finally. Whew.

In other good news... the gas company was able to complete their hook-up work and tah-dah... we now have gas service (AKA hot water and heat - it's starting to get chilly around here, you know!!!). Yay!!! Utilities!!! I never thought this would be the stuff I worry about all day. Welcome to the glamorous world of business ownership.

In more exciting (and more coffee-related) news, I spent last Friday afternoon "test-training" our first barista hire and he did totally awesome. I hope to start advertising for our full staff soon, and we'll be on our way to putting together a kick-ass barista team, so I'm really excited.

We'll also be brewing up some coffee for the annual Taste of Andersonville dinner dance next week (and donating some schwag to the silent auction), so if you're local and into that sort of thing, make sure to check that out.

Otherwise, just hang in there with us, and we hope to see you all soon!

Cheers,
Lee

An even better birthday present...

2007-10-03T07:53:00.000-06:00

Just in before the (birthday) wire, we seem to have garnered ourselves quite a complimentary post on Gaper'sBlock/Drive-Thru last night.

Thanks, Drive Thru. We love that coffee too! ("yerga-shef-ay")

See you soon!

Sounds kinda fruity! *

2007-10-02T16:27:00.001-06:00

Well, actually, tastes kinda fruity (and floral, and chocolately, and mmm-mmm delicious)!

Last night we had the pleasure of attending a celebration of the Geisha, you know, the Geisha (originally "Gesha" apparently), the $130/lb Hacienda La Esmeralda Geisha from Panama that's been on the tips of so many tongues lately (figuratively).

It was wonderful, not just the delicate, balanced flavor in the Clover-ed cup, but the whole story, which may be as fascinating as the coffee itself. After a passionate intro by the always entertaining and informative Geoff Watts (Intelligentsia co-owner and chief coffee buyer), Daniel Peterson, one of the owners of Hacienda La Esmeralda gave a brief glimpse into the path that this Geisha varietal has traveled, from Ethiopia to Central America, to how it is partly responsible for changing long held notions of how coffees from particular regions should taste.

I'm all for anything that asks us to question our assumptions and asks us to think ( or taste) critically, in the moment. I'm also in awe of the scientific but slow processes and explorations that these people are creating, like conducting experiments that won't yield results for four or five years (how long it takes coffee trees to start producing). I am in awe of that kind of patience.

And to cap it off, we got to bring home a half pound each of some of the non-auction lot. Now that's a great birthday present! Thanks, Intelly. Thanks, Hacienda La Esmeralda. You guys are doing great!

* bonus points and maybe a cup of Esmeralda if you get the silly movie reference

What's been missing from all our photos?

2007-09-24T11:59:00.000-06:00

People!

That's right, these fine folks were our first "customers" yesterday during the Andersonville Dessert Crawl. Well, not quite customers, since we're still not officially open for business (and we just gave them the coffee), but they are the first people that we don't know who came into the shop empty handed and left with some coffee and treats! [Thanks for letting us take your pic, friendly folks!]

I am happy to say that yesterday was an overwhelming success, and very exciting indeed. We've been working 'round the clock to get a lot of last minute projects completed (shelves mounted, chalkboards framed, etc.), including perfecting the recipe for our dessert offering, a (Black Cat) espresso mousse that was a big hit ("You have to put this on your menu!").

I don't have an exact customer count, but we probably had between 200 to 250 people come in during the three hour "crawl", with Miguel and myself working the counter, stamping "passports" and serving coffees (a fantastic Ethiopian Yirgacheffe and tasty Los Inmortales/El Salvador) and mousse.

The response to our efforts was awesome with enough positive comments about the shop and the treats to go around. We luckily hit no major glitches, and had our first real taste of (hopefully) what's to come.

Thanks again to friends and neighbors who stopped by (and even lent a hand) and for all your good wishes and support!

See you soon!

Sneak Peak at Andersonville Dessert Crawl

2007-09-13T13:30:00.000-06:00

Hi guys!

I just wanted to let some of you know that even though we won't yet be officially open yet, we will be participating in the 2nd Annual Andersonville Dessert Crawl on the afternoon of Sunday, September 23rd, if you're interested in a sneak peak.

Tickets are $20 in advance, and it's a great way to explore the neighborhood.

Maybe we'll see you there!

You were so nice last time...

2007-09-11T08:37:00.001-06:00

So here's another picture: