Sweatshop coffee – what a nice minimal interior with muted greyscale tones. Matching walls and t-shirts. Non-minimal decorated tables and coffee-cup art. Located at 232 Metropolitan Ave. Two people were working with their laptops on the main table, I chose to have a quick seat on one of the small square tables. Recommended by our generous hosts, we passed by the cafe almost by accident. Beans once again by Counter Culture.
Parlor Coffee‘s popup is housed at the back of Persons of Interest Barbershop. I walked through the entrance, observed two men looking at haircuts in a magazine, then identified the coffee bar and headed towards the rear. Vanessa pulled a shot for me and I regretted not being able to visit their roastery and cupping. We chatted a bit about other coffees and California. The shot was spot on.
Oliver Strand and the Scoop weren’t kidding. Beautiful indoor space, bathed in flowing light, with a bright green living wall and exposed brick. Bright yellow signage and demitasse cups and saucers. The coffee was darker than I’d like but it was fine. I think the barista was in a bad mood as he made a face and seemed annoyed at me for asking about their coffee options. Yes, they are all Colombian. I don’t want to knock on their service completely, though. The other staff member behind the counter, she smiled in warmly and wished us a nice day as we were exiting that left us feeling like we started the day right.
We met up with friends whom I see far too infrequently at Southside Coffee in South Slope, Brooklyn at 19th St and 6th Ave. We have babies now, but the barista and the patrons were cool with that. The woman next to us hanging out with her young son offered us an extra chair. I had a George Howell espresso, and it was excellent. The croissant not as great but that’s not why I visited. Friendly barista, cozy vibe. Wish I lived there, because that’d be my neighborhood joint. Thank you Southside, for a fun visit.
the order is all mixed up, but that is okay
looking out the window at the spotted pig in the west village
we walked to hudson river park to look at new jersey
in the fog: midtown
in the fog: manhattan, across the east river
espresso at sweetleaf in williamsburg
a la marzocco
it was a rainy day and football was on the television but we walked to neighborhood coffee joint WTF coffee labs where asio happily posed and shared coffee insights
but before that even.. where were we? ah, sit and wonder.
and we had a donut from dough
I wandered around Williamsburg for an afternoon.
sad christmas trees.
sad “no bikes” sign. or awesome “no bikes” sign.
pigeons over bedford ave.
And a skateboarder
This is part 4 of the bike and coffee tour.
(part 1 of the tour and part 2 and part 3)
Abraco (86 East 7th Street New York) is a small space with a strong smell of coffee and a distinctive neon sign that is featured prominently as their logo on their website. The beans are from counter culture, and the guy apparently has Bay Area roots and had previous experience at blue bottle. For more information, there’s a good writeup in New York magazine.
Abraco’s website pushes some delicious looking pastries, but I only ended up getting an espresso:
The espresso, a ristretto, had a very “traditional” taste to me.
As claimed, the place was tiny and crowded. Nothing wrong with that.
Sam and I continued walking in the east village, headed towards brooklyn but in search of food.
We stopped by Dumpling Man for a snack:
I only ended up with a shot of the bathroom. “Please be good”
We took a little stroll through Tompkins Square Park and then came across Busy Bee Bikes (437 East 6th Street, New York, NY)
Nothing too crazy here. You can see a pretty big used part selection behind the glass on the right and a pretty bright paint job outside where some of the people from the shop were working on repairs.
Our next stop was Bike Works (106 Ridge Street, New York), just on the manhattan side of the Williamsburg bridge. they had a decent selection of cycling caps here, so I picked a couple up as souvenirs.
Also in front of Bike works:
The city was painting new bike lanes on Rivington St as we approached the Williamsburg bridge. Fresh green paint!
Williamsburg bridge photos:
Heavily covered with graffiti good and bad:
aand plenty crowded with cyclists and pedestrians. It was cool to see the variety of styles. There were old beater bikes, fixies with chopped bars, cheapo mountain bikes and nice road bikes.
We took a break to sit down and rest our legs in Williamsburg. There was some group ride going on that looked more instructional than anything else:
we started walking in the general direction of park slope, feet and legs starting to get tired. I happened to spot Bicycle Station (171 Park Avenue, Brooklyn, NY). I went in for a bit. The shop seemed small, and relatively sparse possibly due to the fact that they had moved to this location not too long ago. A family came in with a bunch of bikes needing attention and they were starting the repair as I left.
I stopped into La Bagel Delight for some food and then took a quick peek into Bespoke Bicycles (64-B Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn) before meeting Sam for a beer at Mullanes across the street. It was well-lit with some beautiful signage.
replenished and rested, we continued towards park slope.
Saw this on Atlantic Ave:
worst prizes ever. but cool tape job.
This little amendment to the BNE sticker took some planning. I got a kick out of it:
we had some time to spare before meeting up with Sam’s friend for dinner, so naturally we walked up and down 5th and 7th avenues.
Stopped into R&A Cycles (105 5th Avenue Brooklyn) for a second:
R&A has a big shop with many fancy road/tri/whatever bikes.
passed by Dixon’s (792 Union Street Brooklyn), so I stepped in for a second too:
Dixon’s is also a pretty large shop but their focus seemed to be used bikes and repairs:
We walked on to Tea Lounge (837 Union Street Brooklyn) where I didn’t get more coffee because I was already 2 espressos in for the day. Instead, we sat on a comfy couch and rested.
I tried making a google map of all of the places visited but am having a hard time embedding that onto this site. So, here’s a list of places that I visited (thanks again to Brooklyn by Bike and the New York Times Interactive Coffee Map! and the people who helped me along the way)
This is part 3 of the bike and coffee tour.
(part 1 of the tour and part 2)
my time for the rental was running out and I was meeting friends at pacifico for dinner. I left lit fuse and rode through downtown brooklyn to get back to recycle a bicycle.
chris at recycleabicycle invited me in to take more pictures.
I took the subway back to my sister’s place in manhattan. It was kind of sad to leave the cruiser behind.
I caught this before the end of the night:
your brake levers overlap! but I suppose it’s good to at least have brakes.
I had to work the next day but continued the bike shop and coffee tour the day after that, on foot with my friend sam.
first stop: stumptown.
I was really impressed with stumptown (18 West 27th Street New York, NY). It’s a really well done little spot attached to the swank ace hotel.
the line was about 8-10 deep, which was a bit long but manageable.
there was lots of fun stuff, coffee and not coffee related on the walls.
stumptown’s espresso was my favorite of the tour by far.
saw this guy parked outside stumptown:
has anyone ridden a no-nose saddle before?
next stop: conrad’s in tudor city.
conrad’s bike shop (25 Tudor City Place New York, NY) looked like they got pretty serious with the bike fitting:
there was a decent selection of apparel and accessories as well as many fancy bikes on the floor.
sam and I walked down to the east village next, to hit abraco.
this guy had a good look:
and this note, hilarious:
“Don’t come crying when we cut your chain and remove your bicycle from the fence! THAT’S A BIG SIGN!”
one more to go. part 4 comes next.
(part 1 of the tour is here)
This is part 2 of my brooklyn bike and coffee tour.
My next stop after Blue Bottle was Oslo coffee (133 Roebling St, Brooklyn).
I took some shots along the way:
I couldn’t handle much more caffeine by the time I got to Oslo, so I skipped another espresso and had a cookie instead.
I told Eddie about the bike and coffee tour idea and he recommended a few places to check out in Manhattan. I was surprised that it was empty there, but I think it was mid-afternoon at this point, which isn’t exactly a prime coffee hour.
I visited NYCbikes (spokes and strings? 140 Havemeyer St. Brooklyn, NY) next.
I continued rolling around Williamsburg to Gimme! Coffee (495 Lorimer St, Brooklyn, NY)
It was pretty packed in here with quite a few people working on their laptops and it looked like some of the after-work crowd was coming in for a buzz. Friendly baristas.
I didn’t remember to take a picture of the espresso shot until I was almost done:
affinity cycles (616 Grand Street Brooklyn, NY) was right around the corner.
The guys in the shop were pretty busy with repairs and they were doing some renovations to the interior:
onward. Grand St. was being resurfaced but the fatty cruiser tires didn’t really care.
I rode down to velo brooklyn (bushwick bike shop). (342 Dekalb Avenue, Brooklyn, NY) This shop wasn’t part of my originally-scheduled tour, but I happened to be riding by, so…
super-friendly and laid back people here. One guy recommeded that I check out the biker cafe, boneshakers – but alas, I didn’t have time this trip. maybe next time. I browsed through their cycling cap selection and was surprised to see that they carried hats by local lady alloneword. She had graciously donated caps to my girlfriend and friends who are doing AIDS lifecycle this year.
I headed towards Lit fuse cyclery (409 Willoughby Avenue, Brooklyn, NY) next.
I was taking interior shots at every shop, but I had to get one from this angle because I have a soft spot for kleins. this Klein Rascal had the mission control integrated handlebars. (Side note: I’m happy someone put together www.oldklein.com – the official klein page is just a product registration form. boo trek.)
that’s a lot of photos. next post is the ride back to recycle a bicycle to return the bike.