Another Reason to Go to the Coffee Shop

A little to the right, please.
No, my right!

Imagine that you sometimes work from home. Imagine that your pet likes to sit directly in front of the computer monitor for some reason - to get warmth from the electronics? - to get your undivided attention? - to supervise your blog posts? to finish off your breakfast or lunch? to read the Howls & Meows page?

Oh, now the pet has moved away from the computer onto the desk, and wants to chew your freshly printed documents. What's a dedicated writer to do?

As much as I hate to say it, sometimes you've got to escape the pets and find a place to work. This weekend, I enjoyed working at Tate Street and Juicy Java, sans felines. It's great fun to write about coffee shop musicians while sitting in a coffee shop listening to live music. It's also great practice in tuning out the extraneous background noise that makes coffee shops so lively. It's good to stay in practice tuning out distractions, yet being aware that there's life going on around the solitary act of writing, rewriting, and rewriting some more.

It takes discipline to write (or for some coffee shop patrons, to study chemistry and Shakespeare!) and thankfully, our coffee shops welcome people who do both. Just be sure to make your stay worth their while - buy your sandwich, snack, and beverage at the coffee shop, and never forget to tip the barista. Green is the right color!

I've written in many Triad Coffee Shops, and it's always been a pleasure! Whatever your distractions, your deadlines, and your caffeine desires, there's a coffee shop for you!

Coffee Road Trip: Raleigh

Larry shows tourists the
silos full of green coffee beans
waiting to be roasted &
distributed to coffee shops

Larry's Beans, a Raleigh coffee roaster that distributes freshly roasted beans on the East Coast, opens its doors twice a year for a free tour. What a treat for coffee shop fans! People of all ages - babies, their parents, their grandparents, 20 somethings, and even a couple of teenagers showed up to see where the magic of coffee roasting  happens. Everyone got to sample different roasts and brews (cold and hot), eat yummy gourmet appetizers, and listen to music by Freylach Time, the Klezmer Dance Band.

 The fans also got to see some of Larry's "greenovations" - little things that add up to an earth friendly business. Their delivery bus runs on biodiesel (recycled vegetable oil), the plant hosts a tank of biodiesel that serves Raleigh drivers, and the plant incorporates extensive use of natural sunlight and other energy-saving practices.

 Larry also explained fair trade practices and how the company partners with the farmers year after year to grow the best beans possible. This has helped Larry's develop unique, tasty, and dependable blends of coffee year after year.

The veggie bus delivers coffee
around the Triangle region



To get an invite to the next tour, you need to sign up for Larry's e-mail list. Larry's Beans are used in Triad Coffee Shops, including Washington Perk & Provisions, Tate Street, and Espresso Doctors (Kernersville). Look for the funny cartoon guy drinking coffee (he's on the bus, too).

Be sure to find out which roaster supplies your favorite coffee shop. Many of them offer tours for their fans!



Kick off the holiday weekend

There are more coffee shops
in downtown WS than you can
shake a biscotti at!

There are plenty of activities to kick off the holiday weekend for those who are staying in the Triad! Check out the updated events page. Friday night is packed full. In downtown Winston-Salem, we have a poetry meetup at a coffee shop CoffeeCat just posted on the Coffee Shops Guide, the first Friday gallery hop, and free wine tasting at Caffe Prada. Not to mention, our long-standing yummy coffee shops in downtown are there waiting for you with iced coffee & espresso drinks!

Saturday night, the Astanza Project is playing at Tate Street -- if you're wondering what "world music" sounds like, well, get off the couch and go listen!

It's officially September, so get out there and take advantage of all the events crammed into the busiest month of the fall! If you know of more events this weekend, post 'em here for everyone to see!

World Peace at your local coffee shop?

NASA photo uploaded from about.com

A coffee shop is its neighborhood.

To be successful, a coffee shop has to have something in common with its neighbors, something that attracts them to come in, come back, and spend money. My neighborhood doesn't have a locally- owned coffee shop, so I enjoy trying out other people's neighborhoods.

For example, I enjoy The Coffee Break, Tate Street, and Coffeeology, all located in the UNC-G neighborhood. All of these appeal to students, professors, and the professionals who live in the surrounding neighborhoods. Even so, each shop has a different look & different energy.

iCoffee in Summerfield is in the neighborhood of Lake Brandt, so it appeals to people on their way to the lake. It's also a hub for the Northern Guilford community and reaches out to the students and families through student art displays, concerts, and gatherings for sports teams.

Sitting on the patio of Krankie's in Winston-Salem, I noticed that the county detention center and one building of the Piedmont Triad Research Park rise over the old industrial city block on which Krankie's is situated. What kind of neighborhood is made up of a jail, a biomedical research building, railroad tracks, and a coffee shop in an old warehouse?

Spend some time listening to the poets and musicians who perform at Krankie's, and you'll feel the neighborhood. It's the neighborhood of innovation, energy, and creativity. It's a crossroads of artistic, scientific, and ordinary people. Some poets rhyme about life on the streets and how it landed them in that jail across Chestnut Street. They're using their energy and creativity to innovate new, better lives for themselves, and they're not afraid to get on stage and let people know.

Other poets rhyme about diseases and human conditions that are being confronted head-on at the research park. While scientists in those labs develop new, life-saving drugs and grow human organs to replace diseased organs, a poet named Eurycide White shouts a poem called, "**** you, cancer."  The disease took people she loved, and across the street, strangers are taking on disease. Does it get any more real than this?

Coffee shops don't rate the same coverage on front pages and newscasts as health care reform, Middle Eastern peace talks, or the war in Afghanistan. You and I know that. But real life is happening in and around Triad Coffee Shops. Take some time to explore your neighborhood coffee shop, or someone else's. You never know - you just might be within arm's reach of world peace or a cure for cancer.

UPDATE: See Life in Forsyth's wonderful photo

What rhymes with . . . ?

Not much time
to write on the blogspot
CoffeeCat is rhymin'
at a Triad coffee shop

If you are tired of not-so great summer blockbusters or you need lively entertainment to get you through the dog days, Triad Coffee Shops have something for you! Tate Street hosts the Triad Poetry Meetup on 4th Saturdays and Krankie's hosts the Piedmont Slam on 4th Thursdays. Details on the Events Page.

These events are lively, thought-provoking entertainment for grown-ups who like to laugh, cry, think, and marvel at the amazing talent we have in the Triad. Spoken word and open mic works are NOT to be confused with those poems you read in English class . . . trust me, I hated every one of 'em (sorry, Shakespeare. Ahem, just kidding, professors).

And, hey, if you start now, you might write the killer haiku that wins a prize at Krankie's. Seriously, the haikus at Krankie's are hilarious. Anyone in the audience can write a haiku on a napkin or scrap of paper and give it to the slam master to read on stage.

Are there other coffee shops that host events for peeps with mad word skills? If so, please let us know so CoffeeCat can spread the word (and spare you her bad slang and even worse poetry!).

What's not to love?

The Pilgrim (well, half of it) came with tortilla chips & salsa.

Coffee pot collection at Tate Street

Tate Street Coffee House is one of those eclectic places where you see something new every time you visit. Tonight, I noticed the collection of 50 or so coffee pots that span many decades. One day I'd like to get the story on each piece.

Today, I was more focused on getting food. I didn't realize how hungry I was until I had a warm Pilgrim sandwich (turkey, cheese, and spinach on a fresh roll) and a frozen lemonade set in front of me. For a shrine to coffee, this place has great food for just a smidge more than you pay at a drive thru.

When you're surrounded by posters of American music & literature icons, tons of local art, and the smell of fresh coffee, the drive through lane doesn't seem one bit appealing.

Don't let the name fool you -- more and more coffee shops are offering good eats and frozen treats!

Discovering the coffee shop

I first discovered coffee shops when I moved to Winston-Salem in 1993. Suddenly, I learned that coffee wasn’t just for mornings. My sister, friends and I enjoyed poetry slams at the Horse’s Mouth in the heart of downtown and listened to up-and-coming bands at Morning Dew on Burke Street in the West End. Tate Street Coffee in Greensboro was an attraction where we took our out-of-town friends. In coffee houses we found the opposite of the smoke-filled, strobe-lighted, eardrum-bursting nightclubs that were “the” night life for college students. At the coffee house, everyone could get a grown-up yet non-alcoholic drink, stick to a tight budget, and hear the conversation.


More than a decade later, as a graduate student, I rediscovered coffee houses in the Triad. I appreciated calm but busy coffee houses like Café Roché in Winston-Salem and The Coffee Break in Greensboro. They provide a great place for coffee and reading by day, and conversation with friends by night. I’ve also discovered that coffee shops are much more than a place to gather for lattes and chai. New shops such as Krankie’s, Brew Nerds, and Chelsee’s, all in Winston-Salem, are putting a new spin on coffee shops and welcoming new concepts and new customers of all ages.

Winston-Salem’s Brew Nerds on Hanes Mall Blvd. is a glass, brightly-lit, ultra modern hot spot for Wii tournaments and trivia contests. The owners of Krankie’s transformed an old warehouse into an arts and entertainment destination where customers can watch documentary films, shop at a weekly farmers market, and visit nearby galleries and shops also housed in what they now call “The Wherehouse.” Krankie’s customers give it props as a good place to drink a glass of wine on Saturday night and read the newspaper over coffee on a Sunday morning. Some Saturday nights you can find gospel concerts at Juicy Java in Kernersville. iCoffee in Summerfield offers bluegrass music some nights and a gathering spot after Friday night football games.

The desire for good coffee and a place to enjoy it is universal. Coffee shops are great places to drink tea, smoothies, and even beer. And since people come to coffee shops for different reasons, you can be sure there’s a place and a time for any of them. To write your great novel, most coffee shops would be the perfect place on a Sunday morning or a Saturday afternoon. To meet new people, try Friday night art openings, concerts almost any night of the week, or Saturday mornings while walking your dog. To enjoy the literary arts, there are poetry slams, book signings, and scrabble tournaments.

In this blog, I’ll tell you about upcoming events at Triad coffee shops. Want me to visit your favorite coffee shop? Want to promote an event? Let me know about it.