Aldo Coffee Company

Tom Moertel Knows Espresso

It's one thing to have a customer come in for the first time and say, "Hey, this coffee is really good."   That's always nice to hear and we really appreciate when someone notices and cares enough to comment. 

But in some ways it's like getting applause from a theatre crowd on opening night.  Yes, you're delighted that the paying audience likes your performance - but like many audiences, maybe they're just being polite.  The real question is, "What are the theatre critics going to say?"

So it's a whole other thing to have someone who knows their way around espresso to talk about the search for a good shot in Pittsburgh, stumble upon us and wax poetically about what they think we do right on their own blog (with an honest appraisal of our near misses).

That's the type of review that really motivates our staff to try and do even better.  It's validation that what they're doing is indeed special and worthwhile. 

Thanks for the kind words Tom.  We wish we could return the favor with an outstanding testimonial of your work as quid pro quo.  Unfortunately, none of us knows a thing about Perl scripting, Ruby on Rails or Ubuntu Linux.  But we'll be sharing your comments with our staff and you can be certain you will have brightened everyone's day.

Old Baristas Never Die, They Just Hang Out in Paris

Former Aldo baristi Steven and Lorene sent us this photo from Paris where they're happily setting up house these days. 

Once we have word on whether either/both have found gigs slinging espresso in some bourgeois street cafe, we'll pass that on so you can visit should you be in Paris.

Meantime, we're jealous.

Seattle: "We're not all latte-drinking, cafe-sitting, grunge listeners."

Unfortunately, nobody around town sells the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, so you won't find a copy in the store to peruse while sipping your morning cappuccino.  But, in the coming days we'll give you all you need to know about what's coming out of Seattle's leading daily regarding Super Bowl XL.

Iron City goes gaga over Steelers

Refuse to snooze: Frenzy slow to build

The View from Detroit: Is this city rooting for black or blue?

Also, this from Detroit News:  Geeks vs. Grit.

In the interest of full disclosure, it should be noted that back when Rich was living in the NYC 'burbs, during the disastrous era that was late-70s J-E-T-S football, he did actually own a Jim Zorn jersey, hoping the Jets would somehow trade for the swashbuckling lefty QB.  (But he believes that's balanced by the fact that he was in the stands for Bradshaw's final game, which was, of course, at Shea in '83.)

Wagering Beans on SBXL

A couple of days ago we made an offer to Victrola Coffee in Seattle to wager 5 lbs of beans on the outcome of next week's Super Bowl. 

We haven't heard back yet, so we're offering a chance for other Seattle-based coffeehouses to take us up on the wager.

It's possible we haven't heard back yet because we're not roasters ourselves, which sort of makes this a bit less emotionally intense - after all, if Victrola lost, they'd be serving the same Intelligentsia Black Cat blend we serve here.  And as you know, that's roasted in  Chicago, not Pittsburgh.  Most of their customers would know that.

Still, we're hoping Victrola will accept the bet out of civic pride.  They're one of Seattle's best and most respected coffeehouse/roasters, and we could do a lot worse than having to serve their beans for a day should the Seahawks trump our Steelers.  But there are numerous other good coffeehouses in the area.  Hell, we'll even take a retailer serving Stumptown.

But not Starbucks or any of their subsidiaries.  Gotta draw the line there.

Any takers?  Drop us an email if interested - aldo AT aldocoffee DOT com.

Better than a Cup of Cheddar

We were going to send this off to "Overheard in Pittsburgh" but decided to keep it for ourselves.  Everything is intellectual property these days you know...

Monday afternoon, Belle was making one of our Black & Gold Lattes™ for a customer and in casual conversation, commented on how she's noticed that Pittsburghers seem to lap up anything related to the Steelers.

Customer:  "Where are you from?"

Belle: "I grew up near Green Bay."

Customer:  "Well, I guess this beats a cheese latte, doesn't it?"

Aldo on CD

We received an email this morning that made us do a double take.

The subject line was "Music from ALDO".  Since we haven't gone the Starbucks route by licensing music we play here, we were intrigued about who was behind the CD.

Turns out he's a guitarist from Philly.  Guess he decided to mail this to everyone he could find named Aldo.

The samples we played sound terrific.  I suppose we're going to have to talk to him about playing here if we can afford it.  Aldo at Aldo's.  That should cause a number of folks to do double takes.

Big Ben's Blog Team Getting Lazy

No, Big Ben did not assume victory over the Broncos, but you wouldn't know it by looking at his blog.

Note the date on both posts.  Gotta love that cache feature at Google.

We'd hoped that with two weeks between games we'd all get some "insider" thoughts, but appears that won't be forthcoming.

Maybe we need to convince Coach Cowher to start blogging.

Anyway, go Black & Gold!

Entertainment to Start Again in February with Josh Moyer

Now that we're past the holidays and things are settling back to normal, we're beginning to book some entertainment.

On Friday, February 3, Josh Moyer will be on stage.  Josh's influences include Sting, John Mayer, Dave Matthews, Richard Bona and Israel Houghton.

On Thursday, February 16, I-Factor will return to doing monthly gigs at Aldo after a holiday break.  I-Factor will be here the third Thursday each month with their wild improvisation antics.

We'll be announcing other acts shortly.

All shows are no cover unless otherwise indicated.

Black & Gold Lattes All Around

Two more weeks of football talk.  And who could ask for more?

Opportunists that we are (hey, who said that?), over the weekend Melanie tweaked our Latte Dolce Aldo into something called the Black & Gold Latte (which to me means something more like a Guiness and Tetley's, but you'd have to go to Molly's for that). 

Silly as it sounds, the Black & Gold Latte been selling like crazy - several times the sales of the Latte Dolce Aldo even though it's almost the same drink.  It's a great drink if you like caramel in your latte.

That's something you have to love about this town.  When the Steelers are hot (and sometimes even if not) all a merchant needs to do is add some black and gold to the mix and voila! more sales.  It doesn't work like that in New York.  Or Boston.  Or pretty much anywhere we've lived or traveled.  But it makes perfect sense in Pittsburgh, the only city with official colors - and fans that travel better than any others.

Good thing we don't have a liquor license or there would be Goldschlager all over the place. 

Given the success of Peppi's "Roethlisburger", we imagine somewhere in town there's an Irish bar doing brisk business selling "Joey" Porter or even "Heath" Miller Lites.  And it wouldn't surprise us to see Kaufman's Macy's selling Levi's Gardockers khakis.

And of course, there's the Alan Fanecannoli, which we'll do in time for SBXL.

Some Ridiculous Ideas for the Multitasking Steelers Fan

We know a large percentage of Steelers Nation watches the game with the audio off while listening to Bill and Tunch.  So you're already sort of multitasking anyway.

Why not expand that experience by going online during the game as well.

For starters, there will be a thread on Fark for the games, just like there was last week.  We can pretty much guarantee there will be plenty of cursing (although Fark's filters are known for some pretty creative substitutions to common vulgarities), but reading Fark while watching the game gets you laughing.

It's already too late to sign up for the Official Steelers Bulletin Board so you can't post about this Sunday's game while it's happening (try next week), but you can read comments from everyone else who's there.  You can also try the SteelersFever forum, which seems pretty active as well as the Trib's fan forum.  And you should be able to sign up for the Steeler boards at ESPN, although there doesn't seem to be as much happening as on the local boards.

Of course, you can send Ben Roethlisberger your best wishes by posting to his blog. 

Not to take a play out of the Terrell Owens' celebration manual, but couldn't somebody sneak Ben a Blackberry or Treo so he could blog from the sidelines during the game?  Wouldn't that be the coolest thing...

And finally, to get revved up before the game (not that you need it), here are some recent fan-created Steelers videos posted to YouTube for your enjoyment:

Here We Go (note: current images, but uses last year's song, although Cedric Wilson's photo shows up when the lyrics mention Plaxico).

Are You Exciteable?

Steeler Mastercard Commercial

Enjoy.  And go Steelers.