Caffé Medici | News & Events Blog

Barista Party at SCRBC

noreply@blogger.com (SweetAls) — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 18:04:00 +0000

Cameron Burr put this video together, which I might add rocks pretty awesomely.

SCRBC photos

noreply@blogger.com (SweetAls) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 14:32:00 +0000

Stevo

Justin

Patrick

Lorenzo

Elia - she is in training for the 2009 SCRBC

For more pictures of the SCRBC go HERE

More SCRBC

noreply@blogger.com (SweetAls) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 18:37:00 +0000

SCRBC

noreply@blogger.com (SweetAls) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 20:55:00 +0000

It was awesome!!!!!!!!

So this is a short post but here are some of the results

1. Clancy Rose - Cuvee Coffee Roasters

2. Patrick Pierce - Caffé Medici

3. Lorenzo Perkins - Caffé Medici

7. Stevo Wimberley - Caffé Medici

12. Justin Daugherty - Caffé Medici

These guys did great and we are unbelievably impressed with all of their performances. I will try to blog more about them later and I will drop the videos on to the website by the end of the week. Thank you everyone for coming and supporting the barista community.

Thank you to the rest of the Medici crew for picking up shifts and volunteering.

SCRBC Oct 31, Nov 1 - 2

noreply@blogger.com (SweetAls) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:10:00 +0000

We have four baristas from Medici competing this year. It is going to be wild and crazy! Below is what time they will be competing. The competition is in downtown Austin at the Raddison. It will be in the ball room on the second floor.

Patrick Pierce - Friday Oct 1 -------- 11:00 am

Stevo Wimberly - Friday Oct 1 -------- 12:28 pm

Lorenzo Perkins - Sat Nov 1 --------11:00 am

Justin Daugherty - Sat Nov 1 ---------1:20 pm

Gallery Medici open house for Lance Rosenfield

noreply@blogger.com (SweetAls) — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 23:34:00 +0000

Photographer and visual essayist Lance Rosenfield is showcasing twenty-two beautiful black-and-white prints in Gallery Medici at Caffe Medici. Lance's work is driven by his deep interest in documenting dissolving American cultural traditions and pastimes, which he approaches with a strong personal vision that blur the line between artistic and documentary photographic essays. He presents us with excerpts from three of his projects, Thirst for Grit, Grace and Burn, and Courir de Mardi Gras.

Please join us for a photographer's reception at Caffe Medici, on Saturday November 1, 2008, from 6-9pm.

Catalina Latte Art Throwdown

noreply@blogger.com (SweetAls) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 19:14:00 +0000

Lorenzo, from the West Lynn shop took second place at a latte art competition this weekend in Houston. Catalina hosted the event and it sounds like it was a lot of fun. Dan took first place. He is the salesman for our coffee roaster. Jason got third. It is really cool to see these types of events happening and coffee shops willing to host them. So cheers to you guys at Catalina! And congrats to Lorenzo for rockin his stuff. Aaron Blanco took this picture he owns Brown Coffee Company.

SCRBC - South Central Regional Barista Competition

noreply@blogger.com (SweetAls) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 11:06:00 +0000

It is official!! The competition will be held here in Austin - October 31 through Nov 2. The competition will be at the Radisson hotel downtown. It is going to be wild and crazy. We should have a bigger Barista turnout this year. Everyone is welcome to compete and watch. More info later. Also check out the SCRBC website

Patrick Pierce (Caffe Medici) won last years competition and will be back this year along with some coworkers. Clancy Rose will be competing again this year, he came in second. He is now roasting our coffee and rocks the roasting pretty hard (he will compete for Cuvee this year). We will keep you up to date on who will be competing from Medici.

Goodflow temporarily closed

noreply@blogger.com (SweetAls) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 16:11:00 +0000

Our juice provider had to close down last week because of the FDA. Here is a clip. They didn't pasturize their juices. They have been doing this for 30 years and all of the sudden the FDA tells them to stop. They didn't have any problems with the juice, but they where shut down in order to comply with the FDA. They are going to open a new facility and we will start carrying their juices when it opens. Good luck to Judy and the Goodflow people. We are still your customers.

SCRBC - South Central Regional Barista Competition

noreply@blogger.com (SweetAls) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:06:00 +0000

Man that is a mouth full! Last year our regional was held during the Texas Restaurant Association's (TRA) big show. However this year we couldn't tag along with this event. So we are looking at a stand alone SCRBC. Right now we are looking for a space in Austin to host the event. Hopefully by the end of next week we will have this locked in. That is the goal. There are a lot of people working on this to get it going.

Mike from Cuvee, did a fantastic job last year for our first ever competition. Douglas from Waterfall Gourmet Beverages, Mike and Dan from Cuvee, and Aaron for AHH coffee in Dallas are a few of the people working to make this happen. We need sponsorship, media coverage and a space for the event. So if you want to be apart of this years event please email Michael.

For all competitors. There will be more info in the coming weeks. I haven't checked the official SCRBC sight yet but I am sure that will be updated to. I think Cuvee will do some training session for anybody who is interested and I think we will do some mini-jams for any competitor who wants to come by and get some time on a machine. Just give Patrick an email.

We are excited about this years competition. We need to get the word out and the buzz started. Hopefully we will have the location by next week and we can start on the rest.

Michael

The Medici Crew

noreply@blogger.com (SweetAls) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:03:00 +0000

Here is a picture of the medici peeps before we opened our Medici Guadalupe location.

Skip Hunt - Photographer

noreply@blogger.com (SweetAls) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:49:00 +0000

Come meet Skip Hunt who is currently displaying his photographs in our shop. The Event is July 19 from 7-9 P.M. This is at our West Lynn location.

Guadalupe is open

noreply@blogger.com (SweetAls) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 12:23:00 +0000

I just wanted to share some pictures from the build out with everyone. Cameron has some video clips that I hope to post soon also. We are in our fourth week and business is picking up slowly. It should get pretty crazy when school starts.

Ultimate Barista Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (SweetAls) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 11:42:00 +0000

Ok, this is very late, but better late than never.

Lorenzo, who is in charge of our catering, competed in the UBC. He won the Frappe contest, second in best of brew, and second in the coffee cocktail. He did really awesome. The competition is very similar to Iron Chef.

I will put up more info on his drinks he prepared later.

Guadalupe location NOW OPEN

noreply@blogger.com (SweetAls) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 01:42:00 +0000

Hey everyone, we are now open for business. We purchased the Metro Espresso Bar from Doug Stott. Doug has been in business for 15 years at this location. He approached me last summer about taking over his spot. I thought he was joking at first, but he was truly serious. By December he was ready to sell and Alison and I couldn't believe it. We started dating at this coffee shop before we got married a year later. I use to spend countless hours at this place.

So we opened the doors June 9 and are rockin and rollin. It has been a fun space to design and open. It is pretty huge. So if you can't find a seat at our West Lynn location, here is another option. It is right across the street from the University of Texas - West Mall. It is in between CVS and the Church of Scientology. Doug helped us with the renovations and it really feels like a handing over of the torch so that a local coffee shop could continue to serve this area. Doug wanted to sell his business to a local and we are pleased that we got the opportunity to take over. So thanks Doug! And it is definitely a huge space. We will try to post some pictures soon.

Come check us out, we have two La Marzocco FB80s with Cameron Burr (GM), Patrick Pierce (Manager/Head Trainer), and Katie Hallett (Assit. Manager) running the place. Sean Henry is the new manger at the West Lynn location with Justin Daugherty as the Trainer. We are going to try to take it to the next level at both of these locations.

Thank you everyone for your support and help.

Michael and Alison

Patrick's performance Sunday at 12:50 pm

noreply@blogger.com (SweetAls) — Sun, 04 May 2008 00:44:00 +0000

So Patrick is on tomorrow at 12:50 pm. It is pretty exciting. There are 25 competitors tomorrow for the semifinals. Tonight Patrick and I are going grocery shopping and rehearsing his performance. Although there are a lot of parties to go to, we are all business, something like that. Patrick had a practice time today and he went over his espressos and single caps. He is looking good and is facing some of the best baristas in the country tomorrow. I think he is going to do good. You can watch the competition on a live feed or you can go to www.scaa.wordpress.com and go to the live feed. They have had a little trouble with this over the last few days, but hopefully have the bugs worked out for tomorrow.

Friday at USBC

noreply@blogger.com (SweetAls) — Fri, 02 May 2008 23:47:00 +0000

Hey everyone. It has been a fun time. I have gotten to see a lot of people from El Salvador that I met when I was down there in February. Patrick is doing great! He has a practice time tomorrow at 3:00 but doesn't compete until Sunday. You can watch the competition on a live stream at it works pretty good. We will announce Patrick's competition time on Saturday night when the schedules is posted. Patrick is sipping on Martinis and sitting by the pool without a worry in the world.

Clancy performed this morning at 9:00 am and did a great job. There is a good chance that he will move on to the semifinals.

There are 5 La Marzocco FB-80 Espresso Machines at the competition. We get two of them for our new location on Guadalupe. So we haven't said much about our new location but it is happening fast. These machines are beautiful.

We are here! Minneapolis

noreply@blogger.com (SweetAls) — Thu, 01 May 2008 23:03:00 +0000

Hey everyone. We are at the SCAA Annual Conference. Patrick, Clancy, and I are hanging out at the hotel right now. We are waiting for Dan to get done with judges training for the competition. It is pretty exciting, but we are just waiting right now. Clancy competes at 9:00 am on Friday. Patrick doesn't compete until Sunday. I will try to keep everyone updated.

Patrick Pierce USBC

noreply@blogger.com (SweetAls) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 12:35:00 +0000

I can't get images to load right now, but our very own Patrick Pierce is going to the United States Barista Competition. He won our region and will now represent our region in the USBC. It is a pretty big deal!! He is head trainer and assistant manager here at Medici. He will be heading over to our new location with Cameron Burr to run it. More on that latter. Patrick leaves for Minneapolis Minnesota May 1. He is pretty excited and I apologize for not putting this up sooner. Pictures coming soon.

Good Times Block Party

noreply@blogger.com (SweetAls) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 21:43:00 +0000

This is going to be a crazy fun event! Come check it out, the party will be on West Lynn between 10th and 12th. The party starts at 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. but I am sure it will continue a bit after that. It is going to be a block party the neighborhood and local businesses are stirring up. There are going to be things for kids, adults, music, food, sangria, beer, booths, and good times. We are going to have our GS3 out on the other side of the road to sell caps and espresso and the shop will be open also.

Catering has Begun

noreply@blogger.com (SweetAls) — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 18:07:00 +0000

We are ready to cater. It is awesome. We have the new GS3 from La Marzocco. It is an amazing machine. We can produce the same quality shots anywhere (maybe not the moon). Ed and Justin were rockin it at an office building the other day. Bryan (one of our customers) asked us to cater a meeting they had. Ed and Justin had a lot of fun. It is really cool to be able to take what we do to the streets.

El Salvador

noreply@blogger.com (SweetAls) — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 17:36:00 +0000

I went to El Salvador with the Roasters Guild in January. I met up with Mike McKim (our roaster Cuvee Coffee Roasters) after 5 days of touring lots of coffee farms and beneficios (where they process the coffee cherries). Mike and I went to the farms he buys from. We talked with the owners and saw the farms. It was unbelievable.

The Pacas family was very good to us. We had such a great time hanging out with them. We met almost the entire family. It really is a family run business. We buy the El Salvador San Juaquin from them.

We stayed up late into the night talking coffee with Aida and Jose Antonio. Cerro las Ranas is the coffee we buy from them. We stayed at the Beneficio that over looked the drying patios where they dry the beans after being processed.

I will have more on this at a latter date. I am also going to put a slide show together and show it at the shop soon.

Employee X-mas party

noreply@blogger.com (SweetAls) — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 15:26:00 +0000

It has been a good year. I am really thankful for these guys. They have a real passion for what they do. I love coming to work everyday. They make this place a fun place to be at. So thank you Medici crew and keep slinging that excellent spro!!

Elia turns 3

noreply@blogger.com (SweetAls) — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 15:19:00 +0000

Our daughter Elia turned 3 on Dec 13. We had a rice crispy treat cake that Alison made for her. Elia is sporting her cowgirl hat and red boots she got for her b-day.

Our roaster is providing new services

noreply@blogger.com (SweetAls) — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 14:44:00 +0000

New service from Cuvee Coffee Roasters - they now ship kids, but you must be in the 2-3 day shipping radius.

Elia

Austin