For the second year in row three of our baristas made the MidAtlantic regional finals, which Belle won. We've decided that all three deserve the opportunity to go to Minneapolis for the SCAA/USBCs. John and Sonja will compete in the preliminaries on Saturday, May 3. Belle, on the merit of her regional championship, gets a bye into the semis on Sunday. We hope you'll send all of them your best wishes for this weekend.

We'll have abbreviated hours this Friday night, May 2 (there are only enough baristas left for two shifts, not three!).

In addition to our three competitors, Rich will be headed out Wed AM for USBC judges calibration meetings and Frank and Melanie will be volunteering in various functions. It's a big, busy and tiring week.

Also wanted to shout out to the amazing Amy Enrico and staff who threw a terrific BBQ last night for the local barista community - a wonderful respite for us to get away from the competition and business stress for a few hours. Thank you again Amy and have a safe trip to Hotlanta!

The 2007 MidAtlantic Barista Competitions were held this week. 18 competitors from PA, NJ, DE, DC and MD competed.

Aldo Coffee entered three baristas and all three were among the six finalists:

1. Katie Carguilo, murky coffee, DC
2. Belle Battista, Aldo Coffee Co., PA
3. Jay Caragay, Spro Coffee, MD
4. David Fritzler, Tryst, DC
5. Sonja Schutte, Aldo Coffee Co., PA
6. Melanie Westerfield, Aldo Coffee Co., PA

Also, Rich was a sensory judge for some of the preliminary competitors and for the Finals of the North East Barista Competition, which was held concurrently at the Bear Creek Inn in Macungie.

We are still considering whether anyone wants to enter the USBC Championships in Long Beach later this Spring.

Thanks to all our customers for voting for us in the recent AOL CityGuide poll.  We finished second.  Not bad for our second year.

We just received an invite to participate in the Ultimate Barista Challenge at the International Food & Restaurant Show in NYC next month.  It's getting busy with a Jam in Easton next week and Portafilter 2007 and the Mid Atlantic Regionals at the end of March. 

If you care to vote for us, click the button below next to "About Me".

Naturally, we'd hope that you've actually been here before you vote...

The controversial movie on coffee, "Black Gold", is scheduled for two showings during the CMU Voices of Democracy Film Festival.  The first is December 2 at 3pm, the second is December 10 at 6pm.  If you're seriously interested in improving the plight of coffee farmers, we encourage you to attend the December 10 showing - reason being that Peter Guiliano, top dog at Counter Culture Coffee, will be giving a talk in conjunction with that day's screening. 

Counter Culture - much like our roaster, Intelligentsia - has worked extremely hard to build relationships with growers and to ensure that their growers are paid fairly for the quality of coffee received.  Both Intelly and Counter Culture are "on the ground" at origin to work with developing sustainable and organic growing practices, assisting in developing community infrastructure (including housing and schools), and educating growers and their staff on how to best compete in the world market.

The result is better coffee at higher prices.  Not charity.  Not socialism.  Both the programs at Counter Culture and Intelly reward progress in terms of process and end results.  And that's a better deal for both the grower and the consumer than is Fair Trade Certification on its own.

We hope you'll join us December 10 at the Regent Square Theatre for "Black Gold".  An important movie with an important message - and one that's already being answered by Intelligentsia, Counter Culture and other progressive roasters and retailers.

Locally, Intelligentsia services both Aldo Coffee in Mt. Lebo and Intermezzo on Smallman & 21st.  Counter Culture roasts for Blue Horse Coffee in Mt. Lebo and is also available at Margaret's All Things Coffee and Tea in Squirrel Hill.

Congrats to Belle on a strong finish in the MARBC!  It was her first-ever competition.  We learned she was in 2nd place going into the finals - if only the shot times were dialed in as well on Sunday as on Saturday.

While we were in DC at Coffee Fest, we learned that Cara and Petra were entertaining customers by doing cheers back at the shop.  During Belle's final performance we held up our cell phone so Frank could hear everything that was going on.  And for Ellie to fly in from Chicago for the finals and cheer on Belle was amazing.

A special thanks to all the other competitors for their encouragement, support and especially, last-minute tips.  Jay, Marcus, Ryan, Aaron, Michele - and especially St. Nick - it was a wonderful experience.  We hope to be competing again in Charlotte.

Also a high five to Andi for finishing eighth in the Millrock Latte Art competition.  Tough to win that one when the guys from Zoka and Murky are in it.  How we wish we'd seen the guy from Tokyo pull off that five branch rosette.  As much as everyone's art was phenomenal, Ryan's interpretation of Blue Bottle's infamous "Gibraltar" - the reverse macchiato - was a great (and risky) play to try and steal the win.  Fun stuff.

We're currently setting up our 2006 entertainment calendar.

If you're interested in performing here at Aldo Coffee Co., here are our guidelines:

1. We generally cater to an older crowd on Fridays and Saturdays, thus we prefer jazz, standards and adult contemporary/alt-country on those nights.  Especially on First Fridays in Summer, which we reserve for jazz.

2. Thursdays and non-First Fridays are cool for light rock/contemporary folk/world music.  We have an improv group (I-Factor) every third Thursday for the entire year.

3. We have yet to make more profit by featuring an act than we would've made just playing CDs, so we don't pay very well.  But we like having music and try to do what we can to support local acts.  Typcially we pay $10-$20 plus 5 percent of gross sales for the two hours of your set (could be another $3-$5).  For proven draws (e.g. Tangueros de Ley) we'll go higher, but as we said, they are PROVEN draws here.

4. We no longer do open mike nights.  Some of the acts sent our regular customers fleeing for the door.  Not good.

5. We are open to "songwriters in the round" types of gigs or pretty much anything else that's interesting.  We have hosted a couple of national acts (Craig Carothers and Ken Karsh), a steelpan band, a blues trio and one really awful punk band (never again).  But most of our acts are either jazz or alt-country, adult folk.

6. We have a decent email newsletter list to get word out and will plaster the place with flyers, but we really depend on you bringing your own fans to make this worthwhile.  More people you bring, more money you make.

7. Our Planzo calendar is probably more accurate than the one here, since that's the one we use for our site/blog.  It's http://aldocoffee.planzo.com.

8. Food... we'll offer you a panini or salad and a coffee drink, plus water as part of the gig.  Desserts are on you.  If you're a vegan and want to eat something, let us know when you show up.  We don't have anything vegan (we used to, but nobody bought any and our salads have cheese).  But usually we have enough red pepper, artichoke, tomato, greens and balsamic to throw a tasty panini or salad together.  But if you're gluten intolerant... can't help you there.

9. No preaching political/cultural views during the performance - deal breaker.  Same with any politics.  We draw all political persuasions, all gender preferences, all meat-eating preferences, all ages, all races and plenty of faithful as well as agnostics. So whatever you say, you'll be insulting a chunk of the crowd.

10. It drives us crazy when you play MoJoe the week before playing here.  It definitely affects our ability to draw for your performance.  We love Cindy and what's she's doing for the Sunset Hills 'hood and Mt. Lebo.  But it's a pretty small community of live music fans to draw from in these parts.  So if you're going that route, we may ask you to play for "tips only".  Playing downtown the week or even the day before is cool, though.

Given all that, if you're interested in performing here, let us know.