It literally pains me to write this update. I have been wrenching over this for months, but here we go.
Coffeebar has been our home away from home for roughly 5 years. You'll notice I am the Duchess. The coffee was always the best I'd ever had, the staff were some of our favorite people in town. Then about 8 months ago something changed. I'm not really sure what it was, it started a little before that when I noticed the quality of the baked goods was failing. I used to order a French Macrón every day, but the new ones were doughy and pasty. That was fine though, I made several comments about it but it never changed, I assume they just don't have an experienced baker anymore.
That was forgivable.
Then, the coffee changed. What was once smooth, beautiful, aromatic, strong espresso, was now watered down and bitter. We literally tried for another 7 months hoping that things would get back to normal.
Let me add that we are not your normal Coffeebar people, we were there everyday, sometimes 3x a day. My budgeting app tells me we spent roughly 8K a year there. Back then I wasn't even mad about it. Because this was a place who would have our order ready when they saw our car up front. This was a place who knew how I loved lavender sugar sprinkled atop my lattes. These were our people.
The final nail in the coffin for us, was when we started hearing that the employees had all of these new rules and it was starting to feel less and less like our little oasis and more like another chain coffeehouse. Sub-par coffee, not worth it food, hipster hangout, and way over priced for such disappointment. At that point the only thing keeping us their was our loyalty to the baristas whom we love.
However, as that last few months went on, we saw most a plethora of our favorites jumping ship. And there were so many new people, no one new our order, and they didn't know about the yelp discount for our extra shots, they didn't know that I'm suppose to get a free coffee on my birthday, all of the things that kept us buying insane amounts of your coffee, patties, and swag, had been taken from us.
That's when it happened. About a month ago we started a journey to find a new coffee house that gave us what we needed. Where we could find the best, strongest, smoothest coffee in town, and still feel like we were welcome with open arms to be the frequent, multiple time a day coffee conisyuour that we had become.
If you've made it through this review you might be wondering what we found.
Based on coffee alone, this is the lineup;
#1 Bibo Coffee - (on center specifically) is our number one for the hot espresso. It is probably the best coffee I've had since those first few years at Coffeebar.
#2 Jostella Coffee - on S. Virginia in midtown is our new spot for Iced coffee, (I love that they blend it!) makes it fun but not sugary.
#3 - Ùn Caffé on Moana really nice strong coffee, espresso, and really yummy food. Sweet little Italian spot and it's worth the wait.
These next ones are worth noting.
Swill Coffee - while the coffee is pretty good (you definitely need to add a shot to get what you need, but great ingredients and really tasty) the ambiance and people there, definitely make us feel at home. Gives us back a little of what we were missing.
Peet's Coffee in the airport is actually pretty decent in a pinch if nothing else is open :) they were super nice one night when we were desperate for some late night espresso. Very commercial but super nice people and really good coffee.
So, thank you for reading if you did. To Coffeebar, we had a beautiful 5 years together. I don't think anyone will ever top me in the dukedom as I have way too many check ins to reach..........makes me super sad, but I could not continue spending close to 10k a year on a place that did not make me happy, or made us waste coffee that we would not finish. I am truest heartbroken, and really hope someday things go back to normal around there.
I have yet to try the Truckee location again since this happened, so I will update that one next time we go. read more