Enjoy the second in our occasional series on morning beverage routines from the perspective of baristas and café or coffee shop owners. We had such great fun featuring reader responses about their morning beverage routines. That got us thinking. What does the morning beverage routine look like for baristas and café or coffee shop owners?
Ox and Crow Coffeehouse, a small-town coffee shop in the northeast corner of the Twin Cities metropolitan area in Minnesota, is co-owned by Mara Crombie and her husband, Bruce Peacock. Mara described their morning routine.
“Our morning coffee routine starts at least an hour before we have to hit the road. Bruce gets up to get the kettle started. Then we go through a routine of deciding which Ox and Crow coffee we want to start the morning with. Or, sometimes, I just pick the coffee and when he tastes it, he figures out which one it is.
We weigh out our beans, grind them, and pour them into our pour-over station. When the water reaches 202 degrees, we tare the scale and slowly start our pour over until we reach a 20:1 ratio of coffee to water.
We pour our coffee into one of Olivia’s gorgeous hand-thrown coffee mugs. Then we put on a record, sit in our four-season porch, and watch the sun come up. And then we just talk. We listen to records and talk and connect for almost an hour. It is my favorite part of the day!”
For some of us, our favorite coffee shop is a third place in our lives, i.e., the place, other than our home (first place) and work (second place), that we keep as part of our daily routine, a pleasant place that brings order and joy to our day. For many locals, Ox and Crow Coffeehouse is that third place.
When I asked Mara about some of her favorite customers, she spoke of them with affection.
“A particular customer who always makes me smile is an older gentleman, who every single day, without fail, lovingly SLAMS his 36 cents [in] exact change on the counter. Then he hands me his coffee tumbler. I fill his cup, but then he never remembers if he gave me the $2.00. So, we go back and forth about his $2.00 and whether he gave it to me or not. Meanwhile, he slips a dollar into the tip jar. He has the best laugh.
We have a 92-year-old customer who comes in once a week by himself. He is grandfathered in for a 50-cent cup of coffee, which we serve in a little yellow coffee cup on a saucer that we only use for him. He always gets a treat, slams his coffee, and off he goes five minutes later.
Do you have a favorite barista or place for your morning beverage? What about it keeps you returning?
[Unless otherwise credited, photos courtesy of Mara Crombie.]
Elizabeth
I never had a coffee routine like this one. But when my husband was in the hospital for more than 30 days, I went down each morning for a cup of Starbucks coffee. It always tasted so good. It was a good way to start my day.