Gastronomy – Fresh Pot

Rock & Roll Pancake Breakfast Benefit, this weekend!

morgan — Fri, 20 May 2011 08:43:54 +0000

On Sunday, May 22, 2011, musicians Stephen Malkmus(of the band Pavement) and Rebecca Gates(of the Spinanes)will each perform sets at the Rock & Roll Pancake Breakfast Benefit for Dara Greenwald. The event will take place at Disjecta Interdisciplinary Art Center at 8371 N. Interstate Avenue. A pancake breakfast will be served beginning at 11:00am until 2:00pm, with musical performances beginning at noon. The cost of admission is a sliding scale fee of $8 – $100, with pancakes, coffee, and juice available for an additional $1 per item.
Dara Greenwald is an artist/activist based in New York City. Her internationally recognized videos, performances, writing, and curatorial projects critique capitalism and promote progressive social change. Greenwald visited Portland in February 2010, when the Pacific Northwest College of Art exhibited Signs of Change: Social Movement Cultures 1960s to Now, a broad survey of posters and other ephemera from international social movements co-curated by Greenwald and Josh MacPhee.

In July 2010, Greenwald was diagnosed with cancer and is currently undergoing treatment. While her health insurance covers part of the cost of her medical bills, she still needs to pay tens of thousands of dollars for her care. Artists, colleagues, and friends across the USA have been hosting fundraising events for Dara. Portland is the first city to host a Rock & Roll Pancake Breakfast Benefit. For more information on Dara and her work, see http://daragreenwald.com/ and http://healdarag.org/ .

FP3

Michael Brooks — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 05:32:26 +0000

Whoa. Time really flies when you’re crazy busy.

As you all may or may not have heard — we’re opening a third cafe. The location is at 724 SW Washington St. in downtown Portland, just around the corner from the food carts on 9th and Alder. The spot was occupied for almost eight years by our pals over at Coffee Plant. Mike and his crew will continue to operate the second location at 5915 SW Corbett.

We’re going to have a joint celebration at the new space on Friday, January 14 to both say goodbye and hello.

From a pure business standpoint, this is really big for us. We’re all super excited to take the next step and launch a new branch of the FP. Most important to us is ability to really bring over the established culture of the existing FP cafes. We take our coffee seriously but at the same time, we’re looking to be a spot that you want to hang out in. This past week has been a long process in tear-down and build-up. We’ve done some painting and some rearranging. Next up tomorrow is the heading over to our neighbors on Mississippi for a turntable.

We also went on a hiring binge. In the span of about one week, we interviewed and hired four new coworkers and our crack in-house trainer Alex has been working overtime to bring them up to speed. We’ll be hanging out, sweeping, mopping and organizing like mad to get the space ready to go for our opening day on Monday, January 10. Our buddies over at Stumpy have also really come through with lightning fast equipment turn-around, coffee deliveries, advice and support.

I know we’re all psyched to get to know a whole new batch of regulars as well as seeing our existing customers who happen to work downtown. Here’s to good things for the weeks ahead.

Thanks!

Coffee Fest 2009

Michael Brooks — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 22:55:48 +0000

So once a year, the city of Seattle is bombarded with a wave of hyper-caffeinated industry folk wandering around downtown, Capitol Hill and eventually – the convention center. Why, you ask? Coffee Fest. At it’s most basic, CFest is a trade show that has all the pluses and minuses of any large gathering of people looking to buy or sell stuff. Beyond that, it’s a great chance to rub elbows with all the goofy characters in the national coffee scene and to truly see that yes, sometimes we really do take things a touch too seriously…
The weekend is also the setting for a bunch of competitions. Some of them are informal affairs at local cafes, maybe after hours drink making sessions (jams) where the aim is to drink as much beer as espresso and pour your drink in the most ridiculous container possible. Others are sanctioned with sponsorships and prizes. Our man, Jason Walker will be at such an event. Yes, the man that brought you this:

And this:

Will try to bring home the bacon, latte-art wise. Good luck Mr. Walker!
If you’re up in the Emerald City this week, be sure to keep an eye out for a gaggle of tattooed, messenger bag wearing, brown finger waving ne’er-do-wells – chances are, they’ll make your coffee in the morning.

Cup It Up!

Michael Brooks — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:13:33 +0000

Whoa, there’s a lot of stuff to catch up on. This will be a quickie. Stumptown is rolling out a sh*t-ton of new crop. What that means for us is – it’s cupping time!
We met in the backroom of the FP North to meet up with Skip and his crazy big batch of Latins to try out.
Skip also included a new version of the most excellent Ethiopia Mordecofe and lo and behold – the first ever Direct Trade Indonesian coffee from Stumpy – bonus, in a peaberry!
Last but not least, Stumptown has stepped up to the plate and delivered with a new decaf. The regular version of Honduras Finca El Puente has long been a staff favorite. Stumpy blew our little minds with the news of a decaffeinated version. Most decafs are like emaciated urchins crying out for more flavor and body. Not this one. It retains a bunch of sweetness and has the slightest tinge of raisin/caramel action. All in all, a nice cup of coffee for the caffeine sensitive crowd.

BBQ…

Michael Brooks — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 17:00:41 +0000

Well summer is just flying along. Last month, Vin took his first trip to origin with fellow coffee-folk, Skip, Steve, Aleco and Mike. They flew to Colombia and in addition to riding horses to exotic locations, chowing down delicious food, picking coffee cherries off the branch, they also had a chance to see the first stages of the bean to cup cycle. Next time you pick up a bag or sip a cup of Colombia la Esperanza you might imagine a group of excited Portlanders learning the ropes of (coffee) cherry picking.
After that, we jumped right into the start of summer with the annual Mississippi St. Fair. The FP on Mississippi has been around for every one and by all accounts, this was the largest. It was nice to see the block filled with folks that seemed to be having a good time. On the other hand, that level of crazy busy is not something to look forward to on a regular basis. There’s a lot of development on that block and only time will tell what’s to come…
Following that, we were all knocked on the head by the yearly summer heat-wave. Funny how this seems to happen every year (kinda like the 5 days of snow in the winter) but it always takes us by surprise. For our part, we made CWE like it was going out of style and our air conditioner only crapped out once. One easily recognizable consequence of the heat (and Portland’s lack of preparation for it) is that the weirdo factor gets turned up significantly. As a native of Arizona I can attest to the truth behind that phenomenon – the heat does melt your brain.
Finally, the warm weather broke and we celebrated by heading over to Vin’s house for our company BBQ. Our friends at Widmer Brewing kicked down a keg, so we set up in the backyard with two grills, ping-pong, a couple of tables for Euchre and some delicious apps from our neighbors – Moxie Rx. Which reminds me, have you ever thought to yourself, what can I do to make this chicken sausage more delectable? The answer my friend – wrap that sucker in prosciutto and call it a day. Thanks Morgan!

Next up, the end of August brings the pain with the Hood to Coast Relay. Wish us luck as we get stinky and sore with our friends and teammates from Stumptown Coffee Roasters.