Milkboy Coffee

I actually made this trip three weeks ago but wanted to wait until the blog was underway before posting about it. Wanted to make a hometown cafe first on the site! Now that that is done, I really want to spread the word about this place. It's in the center of Ardmore, which is in the Philadelphia suburbs along the Rt. 30 spine. Was a nice long ride through frantic rush hour traffic to get there, but it was worth it. I read about the place in a music magazine and heard they have live shows on weekends, so I thought I'd make an evening of it. Apparently they're also an indie record label.

The coffee and (and tea) itself were decent; I would rate it as "high-end normal", pretty much the fare I expected. It was the atmosphere, though, that was really pleasing. They were having some kind of acoustic music night, which admittedly most coffeehouses now have to the point of being an entrenched stereotype. The only difference was that this is Philly, which means that they were actually solid, veteran indie performers. One of them (GoldenCarr) actually was giving away CDs for free, asking only a donation of whatever I could give. That was nice. I know an artist has to make a living, but it's fun to be spared the typical hawking of "merch" that often takes on a medicine-show-esque feel at venues.

Here are some pics of the place...at least they didn't act too leery about me taking snapshots with the phone...




To be honest, it wasn't even the coffeehouse itself that really shone in the atmosphere respect, but rather the town around it. Ardmore is a lovely place. Lots of interesting people there, what with a continual and steady flow of hipsters from the surrounding colleges and the many settled-in, aging hippies! If it could be transported to the peaceful mountains of Vermont it would have been even better. I had an interesting run-in with one of the townsfolk...I was sitting on a park bench and suddenly heard a "hey, hey, HEY!" behind me. Turns out that was from a group of three police chasing some kid who apparently had just bolted from the courthouse. The kid whizzed by me with a frenetic but determined grimace on his face as the police chased after him and sirens started to wail. I thought about trying to help out by grabbing the kid, but figured that would make me both a criminal myself, and kinda a tool. Oh well; you're on your own, coppers!

Coffee: Four mugs
Atmosphere: Four mugs

St. Thomas Roasters

And so the Coffeehouse Tour begins! My first stop had to be something with emotional connection. This is the coffeehouse that my dad and I always stop at after a hike in the woods up on Second Mountain. I also wanted to start out this blog on a really positive note. This place has been here for a very long time and with good reason. They really know how to make a cup of coffee. They also know how to take care of their customers. Something that really stuck out to me was a minor detail that usually gets overlooked. They had non-dairy creamer on the shelf. Most coffeehouses don't do this; they either offer normal milk or soymilk if you're lucky. One of the owners of this place is a man named Geof Smith. He's a really nice person...he actually posed by the coffee bean processor for me. Yep, you heard right...they have a big silver coffee grinder. I thought that all of the big bags of beans in the lounge were just for show, but they're not! I took two photos of the coffeehouse...one of the exterior with the patio and one of the famous coffee grinder.



The next time I come here (and since it's so close there will be a next time very soon) I'm going to take in some of the music that happens here on Friday nights...at least I think it's mostly Fridays. It's mostly acoustic music from what I've seen, but it's mostly original artists, so that's definitely good. We have an overabundance of cover bands and such here in H-burg. Oh, and beware of the traffic. There's some construction going on near the place and the path to get there will be rather winding for a few months! Well, that was the coffee world's one freebee. The places I journey to from now on may or may not be of this caliber. We shall see...

Ratings
Coffee: Four and a half mugs
Atmosphere: Four and a half mugs