It's been a month?! Thanks!

As I write this it is the end of our first month open. All I have to say is thank you, Durham.

Thank you for your patience as we train and acclimate to both our new space and serving you the best drinks possible. Thank you for your feedback online and in person as to what works and what does not.  Ideas from new friends led us to extend our operating hours to 12 hours a day. Thank you for putting up with us as we battle broken air conditioners, speaker installation, the phantom smell that occasionally arises and our landlord is working on, and all the other quirks of moving into a new home.  Thank you to our providers - including Ninth St . Flowers for the decor and Marika for the menu board!  Most of all, thank you for your patronage.  Without you we would not be here to serve you excellent coffees and exquisite teas.

A huge shout-out also goes to the Nasher Museum as well for allowing us to be part of the Calder exhibit and create a special Cortado – with an infusion of whimsical tea – in its honor (for more on the coffee and Calder project see here, and the exhibit here).

We are starting to feel like we are slowly getting into a groove (though we all know there are kinks left to work out), and with that come changes!  In the next few weeks we plan to offer soups, and are toying with some special sandwich items, as seasonal foods will soon start to give us expanded menu options.  Coffee Cake?  Egg Salad?  Charcuterie?  Who knows what spring will bring as specials (jalapeño pretzels and almond ones are more then likely to show up immediatly).  We also hope to introduce smoothies (if we can ever find time to sample them).

For now, we are just thankful for our wonderful customers and our fabulous local and regional partners. Local bakers extraordinaire Crumb (on Twitter as @justcrumb) made this amazing pound cake with blood orange marmalade last week ,  and this week they made a twist on yellow cake with chocolate icing using real vanilla bean in the yellow cake and our espresso from Carrboro Coffee Company in a ganache. I dare you not to love it.  They may even try to work something in with our beans in the future.  We have amazing cupcakes and cookies from Kelley G and Ninth Street Bakery – and are exploring some gluten free times as well.

All the while we plan to continue to serve iced teas that will knock your socks off, great coffees, and amazing teas.  What could be better? What’s that? Outside seating?  We are working on it. In the meantime stop in for a Toasted Coconut Tea and cheese plate!

Thank you

Respite

PS say hi to John, who manages the lifeblood - the coffee program, if you see him!