Beano redeemed, and other Calgary coffee news
Posted by John Manzo on August 1, 2007
It is a DELIGHTFUL, sunny August day, 20 with an unbelievably comfy dewpoint of 7, and WOW that dry air makes for a nice deep blue sky! Here’s the view from our front porch (please ignore the overhead lines):
As my headline says, coffee things are happening here, and all the news is good. First, there is a coffeehouse that’s been around since the early ’90s called Caffe Beano, and it’s an interesting place with an interesting crowd and an artistic sorta vibe. Here’s a pic I borrowed (thanks to calgary20.com) of the front to give an indication of its general coolth:
So, yeah, neat place, and if you wanted to rub elbows with musicians and artists and such, this was the place to do it. Problem was that they had all of the ingredients of a great coffeehouse except for the COFFEE. The previous owners were big on atmosphere but clearly knew nothing about espresso. Double pulls would nearly fill an 8-oz cup, steamwands were filthy, tamps were limp-wristed, blonding was the order of the day with espressos. The staff were clearly, clearly un-trained, but why bother to improve things when they regularly had customers lining up to drink atmosphere? This is part of what makes the story so exciting and why I am on such a major high right now. Beano has been bought back by Janice Beaton (she of Janice Beaton Fine Cheese, which is amazing), who was the original owner and who sold the place in the late ’90s. Janice and her business partner did not have to “correct” a thing; Beano was doing great, with lineups around the clock. But they chose to upgrade, to shape up the coffee program, to invest in training and some very good and expensive new equipment. Now, Beano is the second coffeehouse in Canada to have a Seattle-built “Slayer” espresso machine, which is a heavily-modded La Marzocco Linea. I’ve had two espressos there, one right before last Thurday’s Folk Fest (Rufus Wainwright is shockingly entertaining), the other this afternoon, and Beano is officially in my good books. Both were gorgeous, silky shots drawn with bottomless portafilters. Today’s was initially a little long so the very competent barista made another- it did not meet her specs, so she made another for me. It was superb, incredibly balanced and smooth. I am so happy about this. As I say, Beano had no inherent “need” to improve, and for this sort of thing to happen in the Calgary economy of today, when good customer service is too rare a thing, it almost makes me cry.
The “other” news I speak of are, first, the exciting information that Jay D., who used to pull shots masterfully at Good Earth (and for a while even at the U of C location, which was a daily treat for me), is returning to the coffee game and will be working at Beano. Jay is just a lovely person and this is great to hear. I had the chance to chat with him at Prince’s Island Park on Canada Day and he did say that he’d like to go back to barista-ing, and therewith Calgary coffee geeks have something more to celebrate.
The OTHER “other” news is that, according to my Beano barista of this afternoon, Caffe Artigiano, which is a Vancouver coffeehouse chain and is one of the most important among North America’s “third wave” coffeehouses, is going to open in Calgary. Now, I’ve heard rumours about this before, and they amounted to nothing, but this news sounds more fleshed-out: They have two locations and will be opening soon. And if it’s true, great; if not, we still have some great things happening here, including the expansion of Cochrane’s outstanding Java Jamboree into the Beltline area of Calgary.
