Archives for April 2009

Our idea of a Marathon Sunday at Tazza D’Oro is drinking 26.2 espressos or French Pressed single origin coffees then going on a bike ride. However, this Sunday, May 3rd, Tazza D’Oro will be all about supporting over 10,000 runners of the Pittsburgh Marathon running right past our door (mile marker 21, I think). For all you spectators, Senator Jim Ferlo will be hosting his famous Marathon Party beginning at 8:30 am at Tazza D’Oro. Senator Ferlo has made arrangements for the great James Hovan Jazz Group to play. We will be serving our delicious, carefully prepared coffee, freshly baked pastries and a few other goodies that Senator Ferlo will bring along.  BTW, all the outside goodies are complimentary and please thank the Senator for that.  Inside, Tazza D’Oro we will be conducting business as usual but with a limited food menu, lots of espresso flowing and press of pots of single origin coffees.  I hear you may be able to see Mayor Ravenstahl drink one of our Italian cappuccinos too! So, since the streets will be closed this will be a great time to pull out your bikes and ride them to Tazza D’Oro. Right?

 

Over the past month I have been dealing with replacing Tazza D’Oro’s front door – picking the door, colors, glass, fixtures, rebuilding of the door frame and the price, but it had to be done. Today, Dave and his guys showed up with our new front door. Turns out the factory who applied the custom paint reversed the colors – dark green on inside and “coffee with cream” color on the outside.  The door was installed and now we will wait another 3 weeks for our correctly painted door.  But here is the real lesson for me – our original door was hung June 19, 1999. That’s almost 10 years and opening faithfully everyday. We estimate the total to be 2,688,000 times!!! So thank you -thank you so very much for opening our door everyday! We hope you like the new one too!

 

Whoa! China Millman, of the Post Gazette, steps up the Pittsburgh coffee scene again. This time she caught Drew at 21st Coffee and me, at tazza d’oro, on video doing our thing with coffee just like we brew it at home. Drew demonstrates brewing coffee by using a French Press and I use the Chemex. The story is – YOU CAN DO IT TOO and do it really well!  Just watch – Chemex video, French Press video.  China also includes a really great piece on manual brewing techniques which provides some really great advice about brewing awesomely delicious coffee at home – check it out.

The picture is of OTB Bicycle Cafe on the Southside – they opened a few months back. Super rad place with great food, great beer and BIKE stuff everywhere! Mike Kotyk, owner of OTB, and I have finally hooked-up and we will be planning some good bike rides together – tazza d’oro and OTB. I bet there’s going to be a lot riding from Highland Park to the Southside this season! Mike, how bout carrying a tazza d’oro espresso stout – let’s do it!

 

Updated 4/12/2009: Fun article appearing in Sunday’s New York Times about the Paris Roubaix and other cycling stories. I am never really clear why some cyclists continue to contemplate…bikes or golf (we just had this conversation at tazza doro too)! Is it that we fear when we can no longer ride golf is it? I suppose when I can no longer ride, I’ll probably not be able to do much else either!

Lots of espresso, cafe au lait, croissants and wine flowing on Sunday, April 12th. It’s my favorite bike race of all time, the cobblestones of France…Paris Roubaix, one of the oldest bike races in history(1896) – rain, wind, spring in France and the brutality of the cobblestones on bikes and riders! One of these days I will be blogging from this race and drinking the coffees, espresso and wines from France! We’ll be watching at Tazza D’Oro come and join us.

Tazza D’Oro will be open Sunday, April 12th from 8am to 12 noon – espresso, single origin French Pressed coffees and pastries, oh my!

If you get any marshmallow peeps in your basket and don’t like them – I’ll trade with ya…Italian Cappuccino?