Ellipsis Coffeehouse // Chicago, Illinois
I was sitting at a table, in the corner of a cafe, along with a couple of friends talking about coffee and business. It was last Fall, and the air was crisp, the leaves were just beginning to change color, and Jennifer Chen, Chris Zimmerman, and I were coffee crawling up and down the CTA...
Sol Cafe // Chicago, Illinois
After spending a couple years living less than a mile away from what I lovingly refer to as Chicago’s coffee corridor – where some of the best coffee spots in all of the Midwest are located – I, sadly, moved north. The likes of Passion House, Dark Matter, Buzz: Killer Espresso, The Wormhole and Halfwit,...
10 Local Coffee Chains Worth Checking Out
This is a guest post by Olivia Lewis, of Nanny News Network. If you are interested in writing guest articles for the Table, feel free to contact me. In a sea of mega-chain coffee shops with an identical footprint taking over the landscape, it’s easy to miss some of the impressive local, independent chains around the...
The Wormhole Coffee // Chicago, IL
Hey there, everyone. Welcome to my table here in the corner of Wormhole Coffee. What’s left of it anyway… I’m glad to see that we all survived what I can only assume was some sort of zombie apocalypse. Or something. Looks like there isn’t much left out there—just a bunch of empty storefronts, litter and...
Dose Coffee and Tea // Nashville, TN
Stop number five of the #NashCrawl, once again with my unofficial Nashville coffee scene tour guide, Chris Ayers. I’m pretty jittery at this point. Dehydration is definitely settling in. So glad this is the last stop—I don’t think I can drink another cup. At this point, I’ve had somewhere between 96-120 ounces of black coffee...
Ugly Mugs Coffee and Tea // Nashville, TN
After paying a visit to the incredible CREMA—our first stop of the #NashCrawl series—it was on to our next destination: Ugly Mugs Coffee and Tea. Ashley and I met up with a friend of mine from Twitter, Chris Ayers, who agreed to show us around his city’s coffee scene for a little while. (And Chris,...
CREMA: a Coffee Brewtique // Nashville, TN
Heading east on Hermitage Avenue, slowly scaling a steep hill in my little Corolla, out of Nashville’s downtown area. The Cumberland River, industrial zones, and scrap metal heaps on the left, and run-down buildings on a bluff to my right. This is Nashville’s historic Rutledge Hill neighborhood—a cluster of businesses, hospitals, industry, and housing that...
Madcap Coffee Company // Grand Rapids, MI
Grand Rapids, Michigan. A city of leaders. Home to Grand Valley State University, winner of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics for the past seven consecutive years; Gerald R. Ford. the 38th President of the United States; and the top furniture companies in the world (Forbes). “Furniture City” they call it. During the second half...
Review: The Sparrows // Grand Rapids, MI
What’s the difference between a coffee shop and a coffee house? Surely the answer can’t just lay in the syntax. At some point in history, somebody must have wandered into two different coffee retailers and noticed an intrinsic difference between the two: “This one is very homey—I can relax in this great big chair with...
Review: ROWSTER New American Coffee // Grand Rapids, MI
A while ago, I headed up to Grand Rapids to spend Christmas with Ashley’s family; a couple days before I left, I ran into Richard Futrell (of Counter Culture Coffee‘s Chicago training center fame) at Swim Cafe. We chatted about the holidays and whatnot, and when I told him that I was planning on visiting...
