Atlanta Day Trip Takeaways

Happy Sunday coffee people. I’m listening to fizzy orange, some jazz group with a handful of singles out and nothing else, in that lull before our usual end of week Sunday rush. Drinking sparkling water we make in house. Just won best barista in Jax on Folio, genuinely love that magazine, super sick. Sweating, our power has gone out three times this week and the AC doesn’t like that very much. Thankfully this is the best possible time for this to happen and the heat still works, maybe a little too well, maybe this is the first time I’ve used it here? Little worried about air circulation causing some other mysterious destruction haha. What a life.

Anyway, Two Mondays ago we went to Atlanta for a day, and naturally hit up a few cafes with a few takeaways. When traveling I round up all the hundreds of cafes I follow on social media and pick a few must visits in major cities. This time those were: 

“The Daily West Midtown”

The daily is one I’ve been following for food when we eventually visit Charleston South Carolina, but they now also have a spot in Atlanta and serve Onyx coffee among other local roasters. I’m not sure why I put so much stock in cafes that serve Onyx considering we got in the door on an account last year with little trouble and no real credentials. I just do though, and so far it’s been a good bet.

The daily had farm fresh eggs in the fridge when you walk in, I really liked that and decided to work on that here for our shop. The barista was awesome and considerate, navigating a huge menu with love and advice. I got a cascara (coffee cherry) soda and Dakota my Fiancé got an iced vanilla latte. It was super dark coffee, but it was well balanced, a rare and awesome occurrence. Mine was pretty sweet but hey it’s soda at 9am and that’s on me.

The space was pretty big and airy, we got a window seat looking over some fall trees and a big parking lot and movie studio down below. It was a really nice morning view, I had some root vegetable scramble and Dakota had sourdough, both with perfectly cooked scrambled eggs.  It felt good to be tucked away with a view and affordable healthy awesome filling food. We were just kind of talking about how we couldn’t get something just like this in our city, and what to do about it. Do we travel more, do we keep encouraging something like this and supporting locals we love who are on the way? Do we build something or work with someone who can? To be more specific, if I wanted a local vegetarian winter root vegetable hash, a really outstanding coffee, and a cozy space with a view. I would not know where to go. Besides right here. That’s special but that’s a bummer.

I think ultimately it’s going to depend where we are when we hit a stride in both of our personal careers, in tattooing and Tetherball Coffee, where we’ve both only been at it for a couple years. Both require a lot of grinding to build a clientele and create a good brand, before you can start looking forward freely. I think about Clay who owns Trilogy coffee in Deland FL, who followed that up with a solid breakfast spot in his city. Anyways, the Daily was great, and a result of years of work on their end. Maybe something like this is around the corner in the 904 and we just don’t know about it. Or it’s already here! Like I said, it takes work to build a clientele, gotta keep an eye out. 

“Coffee Man Blandtown”

What an interesting spot man, it’s huge first of all. Then it’s built largely on cold brew, which notoriously has a not great margin and a not super distinct flavor. How do you build a space and a culture like that off cold brew? How do you keep it open? I’ve got some ideas.

My history with cold brew is a story for another time, but I’ve traveled cross country to compete with it and explained it 100 times, brewed the stuff with whole peaches and whiskey to serve on draft at previous cafes, seen it go from niche to standard. Now it’s all we serve for iced coffee at Tetherball. I’ve done a lot of stuff I bet coffee man has too. They’re commitment to flavor and whole ingredients in cold brew is very unique. It’s so commendable that I don’t know if just “coffee man” is a good enough name. I certainly didn’t expect it going in. Tasting a few I was blown away by the clarity at its strength. It’s caused me to weaken our recipe a little here with confidence that I won’t lose body. 

The space size (maybe 3000 sq/ft) has to be possible due to the unique density of Atlanta. You can sneak in a giant space like that 10 min from the city and near housing. Here it just wouldn’t be possible as far as I know. But it’s comfy. Room to stretch, room to work, room to talk to the baristas. 

My only hold up is with cafes like ours that use really bright colors, I feel strongly you need a lot of sunlight and texture, or it can come off as sterile until you’ve grown in to the space. At a space that size doubly so. Coffee man has a little sun but feels a little empty. We ran in to the same thing as a new cafe and we’re starting to fill the shoes we originally envisioned. I think Coffee Man will get there too. 

“Valor Dunwoody”

Valor is mainly who we use as a roaster at Tetherball, so we’ve been to their first location and roasting space a couple of times. We wanted to sneak up to the new spot for a peak and see what the vibe is like, it was great. 

Tons of light, the windows and doors are on two sides of the building and it’s up on a hill. They have a couple of different seating areas separated by plants and slatted dividers. These allow the flow of light and people to move organically and freely. There are plants and pieces of furniture placed intentionally that fill the space warmly and confidently. Love it, our visions really align and I hope we can visit again. 

That’s outside the bar, behind the bar at least from my perspective it was super efficient. Similarly clean and organized, yet with a bar that fits 4 people and a pretty big menu. Good use of vertical space too. When I think about how to make our cafe a machine that runs efficiently as we staff more, I know I’m going to have to start thinking about organization behind the bar too, and not just what the customer sees. I was reminded of Project coffee in Sarasota, who also has very clean impossibly tight behind the bar builds.

So Valor Dunwoody, the staff were very nice and caring, the menu was fun and silly. I only wish I could share it with more people beyond physically entering the space. Valor isn’t interested in constantly sharing photos of it, and that’s okay. It’s nice to have a business partner who we can look to and work with to grow ourselves in a similar way. When I think about their first location to now, it’s such a explosive expression of the future. I hope we too, can grow like this !!!

That’s all, back to FL. Thanks for reading - Elias