Coffee Roasting Company

Mike Marquard Discusses Blueprint Coffee, Opening This Summer in the Delmar Loop

Three weeks ago Gut Check learned that Blueprint Coffee is planning to open at 6225 Delmar Boulevard, along the same block of the Delmar Loop where two other restaurants have already opened this year: Mission Taco Joint (6235 Delmar Boulevard; 314-932-5430) and Chubbies (6227 Delmar Boulevard; 314-7 ... More >>

Flying Saucer Starbucks Lifts Off in Midtown [Photos]

When the Del Taco at 212 South Grand Boulevard in Midtown closed in the summer of 2011, a grassroots coalition of urban preservationists and locals who just like cool things, damn it, banded together to save the iconic midcentury-modern "flying saucer" building from demolition. The result of their e ... More >>

Fitz's Collaborates with Kaldi's and Pi Pizzeria To Brew Specialty Sodas

Fitz's American Grill & Bottling Works (6605 Delmar Boulevard, University City; 314-726-9555) has teamed up with two other local companies, Kaldi's Coffee Roasting Company (multiple locations) and Pi Pizzeria (multiple locations), to form a soda collaborative. Fitz's owner Michael Alter, who return ... More >>

Tidbits from Clayton, Patric Chocolate, Hot Aztec

​- Next week is the annual Clayton Restaurant Week. From Monday, January 23, through Sunday, January 29, participating restaurants will offer three-course prix-fixe meals for $25 per person (tax and tip not included). As with any restaurant week, reservations are recommended. You can view the list ... More >>

Tidbits from Kaldi's, the Grove, Vino Nadoz

A few more items from a very, very busy news week:- Kaldi's Coffee Roasting Company is a finalist in the coffee category of the second annual Good Food Awards, a national competition judged by food producers, farmers, grocers and journalists to honor (and Gut Check is quoting the Good Food Awards he ... More >>

The Five Best Places in St. Louis to Have a Cup of Coffee

​Today is National Coffee Day. Of course, at Gut Check International Headquarters, every day is coffee day, but if we must dedicate this one gorgeous September Thursday to the beverage that fuels our work, then so be it.Already this week, we honored Kaldi's Coffee Roasting Company in the Riverfron ... More >>

Sunny-Side Uprising: Half & Half gives breakfast the bistro treatment

Kaldi's Hosts South Central Regional Barista Competition This Weekend

James HoffmannDream big: A participant in a past World Barista Championship. The South Central Regionals take place in St. Louis this weekend, April 1-3.​What's that buzz? It's the sound of baristas and coffee aficionados descending on the Chase Park Plaza today, April 1, through Sunday for th ... More >>

Gimme Patric and Askinosie Chocolate NOW!

​Now that you've read this week's feature about Patric Chocolate and Askinosie Chocolate, Missouri's two bean-to-bar chocolate makers, you're probably craving a chocolate fix right now. But grabbing a Hershey's from the office vending machine? Wouldn't make you feel unspeakably foolish now that yo ... More >>

Fifteen Shots Later, Part 2: Java Enabled Judges the Midwest Regional Barista Competition

Photo courtesy Kaldi's Coffee​On Saturday, October 31, and Sunday, November 1, Zach Dyer helped judge the Midwest Regional Barista Competition, with the winner advancing to the national competition in Anaheim in April 2010. In last week's post, Dyer explained how the competition works and describe ... More >>

Java Enabled: Fifteen Shots Later, Part 1

​When I received an e-mail a few weeks ago inviting me to sit as one of the sensory judges at the 2009-2010 Midwest Regional Barista Competition, I jumped at the opportunity. At my most delusional, it sounded like "celebrity judge" -- at the very least, it sounded like a great time. Last weekend, ... More >>

Gut Check: Kaldi's cops coffee kudos

Java Enabled Previews the Midwest Regional Barista Competition

​"It's like Iron Chef with baristas making coffee drinks."That's how Josh Ferguson, owner of Kaldi's Coffee Roasting Company, describes the Midwest Regional Barista Competition. The competition gathers the best baristas from Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dako ... More >>

FoodWire: GQ Names Kaldi's One of Ten Best for Coffee

Oliver Strand of GQ magazine has named Kaldi's Coffee Roasting Company one of the ten best places for coffee in the United States. Kaldi's illustrious company on the list includes such nationally well-known coffee purveyors as Intelligentsia of Chicago and Los Angeles and Stumptown of Portland (Oreg ... More >>

Java Enabled: Lo Mejor de Monserrate

Lo Mejor de Monserrate. It means, "the best of Monserrate." This perhaps presumptuous claim is the name of a tiny cooperative nestled high in the mountains of Colombia's Huila coffee region. Last month Tyler Zimmer and Mike Marquard of Kaldi's Coffee Roasting Company visited Monserrate. This was a r ... More >>

Java Enabled: Probat, Unlike Any Other

It's the Cadillac of roasters -- or maybe the Mercedes-Benz, considering its origin. The German coffee roaster Probat isn't a household name, but it's synonymous in coffee circles with high quality coffee roasting. Some of the best artisan roasters in St. Louis -- Shaw's Coffee Ltd., Northwest Coff ... More >>

Java Enabled Visits Kaldi's Barista Jam

Crowds, kegs out back, live music and coffee -- lots of coffee. While it might sound like that college party you don't remember very well (the one that ended up at Uncle Bill's at 4:00 am), it was, in fact, Kaldi's Summer Barista Jam.Last Friday, Kaldi's Coffee Roasting Company hosted its third bar ... More >>

Java Enabled's Day at the Roasters

"It smells sweet, like candy," my friend said as I extended my wrist to his nose. My skin had absorbed the caramel flavors that had been wafting around me all day like a welcome second-hand smoke. It was the smell of coffee roasting.It was a bad day to hang out near a coffee roaster -- much less two ... More >>

Java Enabled: Dedicated to Coffee and Free for All

"If you look out that window, you can still see the original smokestack that they put in when they started roasting coffee here," said Mike Marquard, a barista trainer for Kaldi's Coffee Roasting Company.We were sitting in the back room of the roaster's DeMun café. Sure enough, tucked away behind ... More >>

Jave Enabled: Coffee for One

Zach Dyer is a writer living in Saint Louis. He did his thesis research on coffee farmers in Southern Mexico. Since then, he has visited coffee plantations in Costa Rica and Mexico as well as roasters and cafés across the U.S. He blogs about coffee for Gut Check every Wednesday.Betrayal was the fi ... More >>