Philz Coffee

Diligent daughter ran across this place last time she was here, so naturally we had to stop by and sample the wares. We were so busy goofing off that we didn't get around to stopping in till we were on the way to airport. We got a pretty amazing show. It's about 9AM and there are a lot of people standing around waiting for coffee. Once we get past them there is virtually no line at the register, but the cashier tells us to repeat our order to the barristas: they don't keep track of what you order. There are two guys making drinks and they are just flying. Right away one of them wants to know what we are drinking, which makes me think that our drinks will be ready soon.

They don't have an espresso machine, they are making drip coffee. They each have four funnels in front of them, a hot water dispenser between them, and a coffee grinder on the counter in back of them. Each drink involves putting in a paper filter in the funnel, pouring in the right amount of coffee and then the water. Slap, bam, boom, no hesitation, no fooling around and the drinks appear, one after another. But not our drinks. I think the guy we were waiting on must have made about 10 drinks before he got to ours and he made them all correctly. Just amazing.

P.S. While I was in San Francisco I stopped ordering regular coffee and started ordering lattes. Every regular coffee I got tasted like Starbucks coffee: way, way too strong. A latte is just coffee with milk, which is how I drink my coffee anyway. Kind of stupid to have to pay extra just for the fancy name, but at least it's drinkable.