Intellivenice and a digression
As a teenager Kyle Glanville used to hot rod cars. As an adult he hot-rods coffeebars.
There is a lot to be said about Intelligentsia’s genre-destroying upcoming Venice Beach coffeebar, but I’ll skip the geeky details to point out perhaps the most interesting facet of the project: everywhere I go in L.A., people are talking about it. The anticipation here for the opening of this shop, beyond the usual coffee cognoscente circles, is probably unprecedented. The sort of buzz you might hear around a new restaurant from celebrity chef. This is partially a result of the increasing confluence of social media and foodie enthusiasm but also a reflection of how well-received Intelligentsia and its Silverlake shop have been in a town that has lacked for an established coffee culture.
Kyle and the crew at intelli are making some bold design choices for the new shop, as detailed in this recent LA Times preview. Some of the classic limitations and bottlenecks of typical cafe service are being eliminated and the customer experience follows a model that we road-tested at Slow Food Nation of more personalized interaction at multiple stations with knowledgeable baristas acting as hosts. Another element of the design that I’m excited about is the preferences for ad-hoc bench style seating and the total elimination of the usual tables and chairs. It was an idea I fought hard for during the design of the Silverlake store, that Kyle and architect Ana Henton have succeeded in fully realizing with the new space.
Though I’m no longer on the intelli payroll (full disclosure: I still enjoy frequent free coffee), I feel compelled to continue to evangelize for the great work that they do, particularly as drinking good coffee remains under assault. The trope that Specialty Coffee is an overpriced indulgence is regaining some currency thanks to lazy journalists musing on the economic downturn, the fall from grace of Starbucks, and new big-dollar PR blitzes for McCafe.
To digress, yesterday on NPR, I listened to MarketPlace’s Kai Ryssdal open a piece on the new McDonalds campaign with the line:
“Among the most brilliant marketing moves ever was convincing us to spend $4 for a cup of coffee that it costs a company maybe, I don’t know, maybe 30 cents, half a buck to make.”
Does noted business journalist Kai Ryssdal also think it is “brilliant marketing moves” that fooled me into paying $5 for a pint of microbrew beer last night? Did Kai Ryssdal feel as victimized by capitalist sorcery when he was munching an In-N-Out burger in the next (much more interesting) segment?
For some screwed up reason, of all the myriad bills, businesses and retail transactions we encounter on a daily basis, we reserve a special place of skepticism and strange condemnation for coffeebars in our amateur economic speculations. Why is that? Why is there a widespread belief that coffeebars, with their long lines and beverages priced sometimes higher than two times the price of a cup of coca-cola (larceny!) are mercilessly raking in profits? Where does this misapprehension and borderline hostility come from?
I’ll leave those as rhetorical questions and spare you any more of my half-baked essaying. Bottom line is that the indy coffeebar business gets some poorly-reasoned criticisms hung on it and we should explore creative ways of refuting some of the dumber misconceptions.
Intelli’s Venice coffeebar will hopefully be opening middle of this month.
Tags: coffee, coffeebar, intelligentsia, intellivenice, marketplace, npr
May 6th, 2009 at 10:44 am
Nicely said. Can’t wait to visit.
May 6th, 2009 at 11:00 am
i listen to marketplace; i hear him use that trope all the time. he was talking specifically about starbucks.
unfortunately, i’d guess he probably lumps any specialty coffee vendor into the same category as starbucks out of naïveté. cheap, crappy coffee is pretty much an accepted reality for a lot of americans. i don’t think i know many that really udnerstand the farming and selection that goes into good coffee.
makes sense though, we’ve been essentially raised on mass-produced and massively machined food substances for about seventy years now, right? i would guess not a lot of people around rememeber a time when they were taught to respect foodstufs and how they come about. it’ll happen, though.
May 6th, 2009 at 11:12 am
Coffee of the kind you get from Intelli is a ridiculous bargain. Direct sourced, hand roasted, and retailed by staff that will spend as much time as you need explaining or even sampling the coffee for you–it is hard to think of any other industry that goes to such lengths to ensure the quality of their product and the satisfaction of their customers. Nice post Mr Tonx!
Eric Perkunder
May 6th, 2009 at 11:54 am
Great read and all I will say is I can’t wait for the cafe to open!
Make sure you keep bloggin!!!
May 6th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Heard the piece yesterday, too. First I thought, “How did he get a latte from McDonald’s and a latte from Starbucks into the studio (or together in one place with a mic) and into mystery cups so fast?” Second, I was reminded that to so many casual coffee consumers, more expensive necessarily means “specialty” and specialty necessarily equals froo-froo beverages.
There’s a misconnect. Frilly drinks prices are trending downward, a la McD’s and Dunkin, while carefully sourced single origins are still trending upward.
Is this the beginning of the divorce between s.o.’s and caffeinated milky sugar bombs or are they forever linked–thanks in part to skin deep journalistic analysis?
May 6th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
I’m going to say a couple outlandish things.
1) Americans are addicted to coffee, at least culturally. If it’s not an addiction, it’s an unhealthy relationship. I’m currently in Italy, and while they do drink a lot of coffee, it’s always in moderation. I’ve yet to get a caffeine buzz here. My flatmate was just in Seattle and she said that the doubles were too big for her. The average American drinks enough coffee to develop a caffeine dependence very quickly, and if there’s no coffee, the headaches come. Anything that endangers a cheap and plentiful supply of caffeine is a threat.
2) No matter how good the coffee or the service is, I don’t think that people will ever be comfortable with young people in casual clothes serving a product of this quality and price level. It’s as if people under 30 cannot possibly be experts on anything, even if they have put in the time. This is incredibly frustrating, because I think most of the USBC competitors fit that description - they’ve all put in the 10,000 hours or whatever to learn their craft.
The other thing aspect of this is paper cups. Paper delivery system does not equal high quality.
So, until the barista community becomes a bunch of grumpy old men/women demanding that people sit down and drink their coffee out of ceramic cups, public opinion won’t change.
May 6th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
The elimination of tables and chairs and ad-hoc seating, combined with making better use of vertical space, is something I haven’t seen coffeehouses really explore. I’ve been inspired by this little place in Barcelona owned by Camper (yes the shoe company) http://www.flickr.com/photos/prosales/18490637/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefancyber/59290438/
Its great to know that there is a growing buzz for this type of coffee in my homeland, a city that is otherwise still sadly dominated by chain & coffee mediocrity.
May 6th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Nick, I’m working on that grumpy old man/ceramic cup thing, and it’s working out better than expected.
May 11th, 2009 at 7:41 am
Glad you posted this! Next up, bourbon blog (which, btw, I would actually love to read).
Has intelligentsia gotten in touch with Marketplace? I bet the opening/coffee during the recession/fight against the mclatte would be enough of a story. Mr. Zell has gotten really good at making his case.
May 23rd, 2009 at 3:12 pm
“So, until the barista community becomes a bunch of grumpy old men/women demanding that people sit down and drink their coffee out of ceramic cups, public opinion won’t change.”
Well, here’s a 37-year-old barista who demands ceramic. If I go somewhere and they default to paper, my mental coffee professor fails them automatically. It’s up there with blackened beans and 16oz double cappuccinos. And I’m pretty grumpy. Educating and convincing the public—who are less interested and less involved in coffee than any barista—is exceptionally difficult.
May 24th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Can you speak a little bit about the seating? To me it seems detrimental to not offer table seating when you want people to stay and enjoy their drink. Or is the idea that the benches allow more people to sit and enjoy without the commitment of taking a full table?
May 25th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Jake - I started to reply to you on the seating question, and it has practically turned into a whole blog post. I think I’ll roll it into another intellivenice post with some more detail about how i think the flow will work (in response to MikeWhite on shotzombies).