Don Senneville and Jim White
We are looking for all those locals who are not in town. Where have you gone? So we went on assignment to look around. Our hunch is that coffee bars in cooler climes may be a good place to start. Sure enough Jim goes to Flagstaff and has a French breakfast with Betty White at the Foret Flg Cafe on Beaver St. What a find, and it did not require a trip to Paris to savor the finest French Omelet ever encountered. Jim knows omelets because that is what he always orders when faced with an intimidating foreign menu. The macchiato was perfect, as was the croque madame. It is 1 hr 50 min from our towns. We could be there by 7am easily any morning. We digress. So, after a few bites of this beautiful and delicious plate, while sitting outside under actual trees, Betty was wagging her big, fluffy labradoodle tail under the chair. We have never known a dog with first and last names or speaks French. She got no scraps. Will return. We have a picture of the omelet and Betty Blanche. Au revoir le chien.
Don has taken a more serious approach in his search for ‘others’. He is in Montana and Idaho where coffee is Rodeo King and Queen. There are hardly any people up there. But Don reports that there are more than 20 locally owned coffee spots in Missoula (seriously). A few of his favorites include Clyde Coffee, Florence Coffee Company, and Black Coffee Roasting Company. His most favorite is called Good Americano. No surprise there. There are more people driving on our freeways than live in Montana! Coffee appears to appeal to 3rd generation hippies, mountain bikers, river rafters, outdoors type people and a few humans. Everybody wears river sandals and sports those aerodynamic alien spaceship-looking containers on top of their cars. Otherwise it’s dirt- and snow-ready pickups. It’s not like our Coffee Row, bordered by massive amounts of humans. It is interesting that Lewis and Clarke passed this way on their Corps of Discovery mission to eventually found the Seattle Coffee Company in 1806. This was before Google Earth, in a time when map making was challenging. The Sacagawea Cafe/Raft Rentals is located in Sulfur Springs, Montana. Don is researching this. The Lewis and Clarke Pub/Cafe and Motel is also located along this route. Free coffee.
The research is in. Everyone has gone to Montana and Idaho, where Don has found an abundance of humans from Tempe, N Phoenix, Cave Creek, South Mountain, Sedona and Venus. This explains a lot about the vacancies here on Coffee Row. Some of his more interesting reporting was about Missoula’s farmers market. That’s how exciting it must be there: Houthi sweets from Yemen, no Mexican food, grizzly bears, flags galore, potatoes and raging rivers.
We had to edit the rest of Don’s report. But why the diaspora to these hinterlands? It is close to Canada. We hope Don returns.
Finally, Janey’s Coffee House has reopened and we are there! Back in the fold of Coffee Row, and all is good. No grizzly bears or French menus, ‘just a place where friends meet’.
The $10 door at ROC2 still has the best espresso beans and now has beans from Ethiopia, which is where all Italian beans come from. Who knew? Let us know about your summer coffee experiences at The CUP, [email protected]
