How Other People Dispose of their Coffee Grounds

We are just back from a trip to Sardinia where we sampled a lot of fine espressos, lattes and cappuccinos...but like many parts of the world, our favorite filter coffee was no where to be found.

One thing we have noticed duiring our travels is how efficiently these cafes handle their spent coffee grounds. In Melbourne Australia, they have these long tubes, about four or five feet long, into which they dump each batch of old grounds. Then while I was in Italy, I saw the most common recepticle was a drawer that pulled out and they were able to knock that espresso head right on there to dump the old coffee out.

We have just a little knockbox, that doesn't work nearly as well. Of course, since filter coffee is the preferred beverage at our cafe, we don't have to deal with nearly as many grounds. Still makes us think we should improve with the new method.

Another thing we are looking for are new urns for the cream and milk. Gonna guy some new ones next week, and soon we are getting two new giant black gravity fed coffee dispensers. These will show how much coffee is left and that will help us to know when to fill 'em back up again.

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Ice Coffee Rocks at the Cafe

Ice Coffee is Back!  After a long hiatus, it's time to haul out the ice coffee, coffee ice cubes and start making solar ice tea. With weather up into the 80s, that's what people are looking for....so we'll be freezing coffee ice cubes and trying to make as much ice coffee as we can.

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Specials Add Flair to an Already Full Menu

Our recent trip to Australia proved that our beloved 'filter coffee' does not extend to the continent of Australia or New Zealand. No, nobody wants this down under, they only want lattes, flat whites and espressos. I tried to find it to no avail....nobody wants to drink weak filter coffee, they wait for the espresso or lattes and never even think of drinking filter brew.

The coffee was strong here, and the baristas have developed ways to speed up the usually lengthy process of making espresso and foaming the milk. They stack up three or four pitchers on top of one another in order to speed the process. They also have a five-foot deep tube in which they throw old grounds.

The cafe has been extremely busy over the past few weeks, and our lunch specials are reaching more and more people over the fax. We send this fax with a special salad and a unique sandwich out twice a week. People love seeing all of the specials we come up with. Last week we featured mixed greens with toasted pine nuts, dried cranberries and a scoop of chicken salad.  We also put a roast beef sandwich with horseradish sauce mixed in.

Earlier in the week, we featured a pesto mayonaise on a turkey sandwich. And a salad with fruit and nuts, and goat cheese. All inall, we've been creative and had fun, and it's working!  Come in and use your coupon that we sent in the mail to most of our neighbors in the Neighborhood checkbook.

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Time to Go on the Road
Current mood: adventurous

It’s time for another cafe road trip to explore the world’s different coffee regions and trends. This time our trip will take us to Huntington Beach, CA where it’s called Surf City. Then we fly to Melbourne Australia and there it will be a challenge to find what is known there as ’filter coffee.’

The cafe has been very busy, with lunch business really taking off, more and more people enjoying our sandwiches and salads. Sadly, our beloved manager Liz and our stalwart barista Matt are leaving us, hey, that’s what happens to good people. While we will miss them both, we are excited about new faces that we will bring in. Rachael starts training this Saturday and we will be welcoming our old friend Hillary and maybe Sam back to the fold.

We have been experimenting with a new chai...this one an authentic Indian chai that our web developer Manjula told us about. We had to buy cardomom seeds and also tea powder, but we’re almost there. Soon you will be able to choose from the ’Real thing," or the very popular Big Train Chai, beloved by so many cafe customers.

Stay tuned for more reading about coffee down under!

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Coupons Coming Out This week for $1.00 off at the Cafe
Current mood: breezy

The cafe has been having a series of great days, and it’s cold and windy outside. Despite this, we still have so many people who come in and say "I love everything they make here!"  That makes us all feel great, and makes me thank our baker Amy who is learning more and more about this craft. Also our purveyors who provide us with the best food, it’s not cheap, it’s just damn good.

This week we should be getting the coupons back from people who got them in the mail. We sent them out with Neighborhood Checkbook, they have $1.00 off coupons to try lunch or ’buy one get one’ for a free coffee.

The mailing house had some delays but we hope that they hit the boxes today. After some recommendations from our staff, we decided to be closed on Easter Sunday. So anyone who wants to have dinner with their families can do so we won’t make them come in to work.

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Global Wheat Shortage Could Raise Prices

Today I read about a big problem for businesses like ours. A global wheat shortage has driven up the prices and is making everyone who buys by the bushel like we do nervous. Last night at Costco they said they were rationing the 50 lb bags, only two per customer!

I worry that we’ll have to raise prices, which nobody likes to do...I have already noticed that bread is darn expensive almost five bucks a loaf. 

Next week we will be sending out thousands of coupons for $1.00 off a sandwich and $1.00 off a salad. I think people will enjoy using these, and we hope that there are new faces in the cafe as a result. We also started a radio ad campaign this week, so who knows, maybe some new people right now are hearing our ads and thinking ’maybe i’ll check that new place out!’

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We’re Doing Great, Let’s Do Even Better

We had an all staff meeting this week at the cafe to get everyone on board to make the best sandwiches we can and get all of us in agreement that we would do our very best.

We've compiled a great staff at the cafe, with no slackers or marginal types. Only good people who really care about the customers. I wanted to tell everyone that we are pleased with how things are going but we want to do even better. So watch how your next sandwich tastes just a little better and your salad will amaze you.

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Coupons Coming in the Mail for the Cafe

The cool new little mini flyers that we printed up and hand out describe the GoNOMAD.com website better than anyone can in one sentence. These are 2" x 3" foldout flyers in full color that we are giving away at the Javits Center when we exhibit at the New York Times Travel Show.

This is a big deal because it's the biggest travel show in the US, and we've got a good role in the proceedings. We are going to be giving a travel writing presentation to the public at the show with Kent St. John and Matthew Link assisting.

We are going to be sending out coupons through Neighborhood Checkbook, and in March,  you'll be able to save $1.00 on sandwiches or salads and get a free coffee when you buy one. Bring a friend to the cafe!

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Starbucks fights to compete with free wifi--lame

What do you do if you're once-cool Starbucks, but facing declines in same store sales, and a forced cutback in your wild expansion plans? You see Mickie D's going into the cappuccino business, teaching it's burger flippers to make lattes. And then even Dunkin' is selling espresso, while your pathetic breakfast sandwiches are ruining the smell of the coffee in the place. So you scrap the sandies and stop soaking your customers for computer time.

Starbucks announced in the Wall St. Journal today that they have good news for AT&T wireless customers. They are now giving away Wi-Fi for, gasp, free! It used to be that you had to enter a clunky interface and register with T-mobile and then spend $6 an hour. But now, the big chain is feeling generous so they are allowing the 22 million Americans who have iphones and att service to get onto their network without gouging them.

If they were smarter they would just let anyone use it, for free, like we do here at the GoNOMAD Cafe. But at least this is better than before.

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Quebec City is the latest Research Site

The GoNOMAD Cafe is in Quebec City where this cozy city has plenty of coffeeshops, cafes and other places to enjoy the beverage of choice. We went dogsledding today in deep snow, and last night we had a very fine dinner at a restaurant called Graffiti in the city. I enjoyed sweetbreads and some pasta with pesto...s'nice!

The cafe is busy...despite the crappy weather. We still see record numbers of customers and people love the ambience. I think that it's the community we've established in downtown S. Deerfield that makes people keep coming in. Plus, we have been sending out emails to our regulars and the many events and fun things happening make the cafe the place to be!

We've added Meg to our team of baristas. She has a skill in vegan baking, so we will soon be offering these pastries...that even vegans can love.

Many people continue to come into the cafe and say 'wow this place is great!'

We are publishing a new website called deerfieldattractions.com that brings together all of the businesses in Deerfield to promote the region to tourists. So far the reaction is super positive, stay tuned for more!

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