Great cute little coffee shop to grab a warm beverage on a rainy day like today. The coffee was delicious and I had a yummy cranberry muffin too ? I can't wait to come back on a warm day to try the cold brew. Support local!
I asked for an iced vanilla latte and revived a drink that tastes like milk mixed with milk. I’m pretty sure there is no espresso or vanilla flavoring. She made it in under ten seconds so not sure how espresso would even be in there. It came in a styrofoam up that you would get at a gas station. The lady was also a little rude so I will not be going back.
What an unexpected find. A genuine coffee shop. Great coffee. Amazing house-made muffins, and a real vibe with students, professionals, and seniors happily coexisting in a shared space
Really great coffee- Will be returning and trying those muffins ASAP!
Always a great cup of coffee no matter what flavor.you choose. The blueberry turnovers are fantastic—light, flaky and baked to perfection. They have a very large selection of muffins. Most are crunchy on top and moist in the middle. You will have a hard time choosing your selection. Their commuter business has been non-existent for 2 years and they have stuck it out. Congratulations to them and I hope my friends and neighbors will stop in and help a landmark of our town Westmont. Tell them Barry sent you.?
My wife and I are looking for a good local coffee shop, so we visited here recently to try it out. We ordered a white mocha and a short cappuccino, and the quality of what was served was so bad, I feel I need to make this review as constructive as possible. For starters, the white mocha did not have coffee in it. I'm not sure if the barista just forgot, but it was simply syrups and steamed milk, which is not a mocha. As for the milk steaming, the barista re-steamed milk which is a very bad idea. Both of our drinks were very watery because steam is made of water. If you repeatedly add more steam to the same milk, it waters down the milk and makes for a thin, bland drink. Re-steaming is also dangerous from a food safety perspective because the milk was left in the pitcher before and after making our drinks, presumably leaving milk in the danger-zone of food temperature for extended periods of time. The steaming pitcher used was far too large for making a 12 oz drink. It is much easier to create proper micro-foam and a rich texture with an appropriately sized pitcher. On top of that, the barista added more milk in the middle of steaming which is very poor technique. Also, a few aggressive blasts of bubble-making does not lead to a good milk drink. The point of steaming milk rather than just heating it on the stove is to create a well-integrated micro-foam that is silky in texture, not make a few bubbles that float around. Even worse, instead of cleaning the pitcher and using fresh milk, the barista re-steamed the excess milk for the mocha to make the cappuccino. Just adding some bubbles on top of watered-down hot milk does not make a cappuccino, and even then there were only a few bubbles. Finally, and I shouldn't have to say this, but always wipe down the steam wand and purge it before and after every single drink. This is such an easy step, and it is inexcusable to skip it. Moving on to the espresso, I do not remember hearing the grinder, but since you have one, I can assume the beans were ground earlier in the day. Espresso grind is very fine, so pre-grinding means it quickly oxidizes and loses a lot of flavor, leading to weak, bland coffee. It should always be ground to order, no exceptions. The espresso shot pulled way too fast, and what was poured into my cup looked watery and had no crema. This generally means the grind is too coarse and the resulting espresso is weak and sour. I don't expect everyone to have perfect espresso, but just from watching it, this wasn't even close and the resulting taste backed up my suspicions. To wrap this up, our drinks tasted watery, stale, and very cheap. As a former barista who is married to a barista, I can say from experience that essentially every step in drink preparation was done incorrectly and sloppily. Regardless of whether it is from laziness or ignorance, it is unacceptable to charge nearly specialty coffee shop prices for coffee that might as well have come from a hotel cappuccino machine. There is a wealth of information on the internet from experts like James Hoffman on how to properly steam milk, dial-in espresso by taste, and how to make traditional espresso drinks. Please take some time to learn the basics and buy the appropriate equipment, because the current product is very poor.
A friend of mine gave me one of her pumpkin nut muffins yesterday. It was so large and delicious. I would definitely go back for more.
We love to get the muffins. They are the best!
Please consider using something other than styrofoam for cups. Use for 20 mins, throw away, lasts 1 million years.
Great neighborhood coffee shop. Excellent muffins made fresh every morning.