Monday, August 15, 2005

Meet me at Heirloom

On Saturday and Sunday, I hung out at Heirloom Cafe, the new eatery at Mission Meridian. I am extremely happy to report that they use high-quality espresso beans, and appear to have employees who actually know how to correctly coax espresso out of said beans. I can also happily say that the cafe is not a chain and that the owners actually live in South Pasadena. I hope that their presence will stir some friendly competion with a couple of other unnamed coffee shops in the area...

I ran into Tommy (who I met at one of the TownTalks) on Saturday at Heirloom. We had a good discussion about writing which meandered through a number of enjoyable topics (and inevitably found its way to LA traffic, like all good SoCal conversations).

7 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

Is Heirloom Cafe where the tea house next to Nicole's used to be?

4:08 PM  
Blogger South Pas Blogs said...

It's right across from Buster's on the other side of Meridian; it's next to the front office for the Mission Meridian condiminiums.

4:12 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

OK, got it. Yes, I think you're right, it will perhaps make both Busters and Kaldi sit up and take notice, that there's a new kid in town. It'll be good having more variety from the customers' standpoint, but I wonder if there's enough business to go around, and if this won't cause a shakeout in the future.

I also wonder if they're planning on (or have) wifi, and if they'll let me sit for a while and write. I'll have to swing by on my next walk to Videotheque or the library.

4:37 PM  
Blogger South Pas Blogs said...

Thor, don't know about whether they have any plans for wifi or not. They were really busy both times I was there. I sat both reading and writing, and no one seemed to mind. However, I can imagine that as their flow picks up that might become an issue.

4:42 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

In defense of Buster's, they have never been anything supportive of me sitting and writing for hours there, they let me plug in my laptop, and I like the vibe. I'll agree that their coffee isn't the best (not strong enough for me), but they'll make me a red eye or an americano and it's fine.

I generally don't hang out at Kaldi, being at least 20 years too old... :-( although I have been known to grab a ding dong there from time to time.

I would be surprised if a new cafe will be able to compete as well given their likely much higher rent, but maybe they're going for a different demographic than either B's or K.

WiFi is for me just an excuse to not write, so I'm happy that Buster's doesn't have it...

11:24 AM  
Blogger Tommy said...

I'd also like to add that Tristan, one of the owners, came out to talk to us. Not only was he genuinely concerned about the food and the service we recieved, but was also friendly and interesting. Which makes wanting to support the place pretty easy.

9:19 AM  
Blogger South Pas Blogs said...

Ken, I definitely don't want to talk bad about Buster's or anywhere else; but I do hope that a healthy sense of competition improves everyone's offering.

Plus, the quality of coffee does mean a lot to me.

9:23 AM  

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