Popular Science's America's 50 Greenest Cities

"Want to see a model for successful and rapid environmental action? Don't look to the federal government—check out your own town. Here, our list of the 50 communities that are leading the way. Does yours make the cut?"

from Novometro

Labels: city of oakland, green, media, sustainability, www

The Awaken Cafe was featured in a great article by Angela Woodall in today's Tribune:

"Downtown Oakland shines a little brighter with new venues:
Atmosphere improving in area west of City Hall"

Pick up a copy of the paper or check it out online and let us know what you think!

Labels: city of oakland, media, spread the word

Check them out here and here and here.

Labels: media, www

A cool blog about Oakland called "Living in the O" has a post about us. Check it out!

Labels: media, www

"Bring Home the Burning Man: Two 30-something entrepreneurs who met at the festival in the desert open a cafe and performance space in O-town."

By Andrea Lampros

"Two Burning Man veterans who believe in unbridled creativity, the power of community and, well, excellent coffee are launching a cafe and performance space in the heart of downtown Oakland, set to open soon...."

Read the entire East Bay Monthly article here.

Labels: burning man, media

Check this out from blogger Mayhill Fowler on www.huffingtonpost.com:

"The Obama party has started early by the time I arrive on the block of 14th Street between Broadway and Franklin, which sports that sure sign of gentrification, an art gallery. Next door is the Museum of African-American Technology; next, in an historic building with a restored Art Deco verdigris facade, is the Awaken Cafe, neighbor to the old but sturdy Central Building, new home to the Obama California Campaign. Campaign workers, the hip-hop guys from Blackalicious, who will perform later in the afternoon, and the merely curious wander in and out of the old office building, elevatoring up and down from the third floor campaign suite, not quite finished, hastily painted in red, white and blue. Out on the street, Obama volunteers, some of whom I know from my previous forays into Obama territory, mingle with friends and the press. Cameramen record the scene, even though not much is happening yet, unless you count the shake and shimmy of the kids' inflatable jump hut."

Labels: media, spread the word

The cover story from this month's issue of San Francisco Magazine is all about the new cool in Oakland:

"Street by street, the city is coming into its urban own -- one nightclub, art gallery, renovated building, shop, restaurant, and condo at a time. As would-be San Francisco homeowners and businesses chafe at the cost of living and operating there, Oakland finds itself on a relentless drive toward a modern-day revitalization akin to what happened south of Market in the '90s, or the incursion of youthful hipness Brooklyn has seen in the past decade."

Read it online here.

Labels: arts, city of oakland, location, media, san francisco

From the New York Times:

To Burundi and Beyond for Coffee's Holy Grail
By PETER MEEHAN

Duane Sorenson and a few like-minded coffee hunters around the country will go almost anywhere, do almost anything and pay almost any price in pursuit of the perfect cup of coffee.

Read the article.

Photo from www.nytimes.com, by Erik Jacobs.

Labels: coffee, media

Commenting on a Starbucks advertisement that appeared in the the New York Times, the July/August 2007 issue of Adbusters Magazine asked readers to reflect:

"Imagine a city, in which there is only one kind of coffee shop. One kind of burger place. One supermarket. One pub.

Remember what diversity felt like? The fun of discovering something unexpected, in a place you hadn't been before? Variety and local flavour matter for vibrant, healthy communities. Go ahead, ditch Starbucks -- and enjoy some local culture instead."

Labels: coffee, community, media

"According to research, coffee might actually have some health benefits, and it's one of the few drinks available these days that doesn't come loaded with sugar and calories. It might guard against gout, diabetes and Alzheimer's disease, and other health problems."

Read the entire article here.

Labels: coffee, media, perks

We've been following journalist Ryan Tate's excellent stories in the San Francisco Business Times on the business of restaurants and the revitalization of downtown Oakland.

I recently stumbled across a tongue-in-cheek posting he made on his blog "Covers" in response to the Tribune story about the Awaken Cafe. I wrote him a note introducing myself and telling him that I had evidence that the suspiciously named Friend of the Cafe Larry Biggie actually exists. Biggie must have noticed the link on the Awaken Cafe web site, and also wrote to him. Which prompted this posting from Tate.

We think the exchange is pretty funny and like Tate's style! Let us know what you think!

Labels: city of oakland, friends of the awaken cafe, media, www

"This level of coffee connoisseurship is new here, but why has it taken so long for us to catch on? Everyone knows that the Bay Area has pioneered most food categories: We make some of the best wine and most beautifully whiffy cheese in the country, and while the rest of the world is just figuring out what "organic" means, many of our progressive farmers have already deemed their practice 'beyond' it.

"Although Oakland functions as the port for all green beans arriving on the West Coast (and considering that coffee is the second largest commodity market in the world next to oil, that's a lot of beans), SF has long had a reputation for being an undiscriminating 'drip town.' (Or that's how Eileen Hassi, the perky 29-year-old who co-owns Ritual, bluntly puts it.) Especially when you compare us to the Pacific Northwest, home to such revered cafes-cum-roasters as Victrola Coffee Roasters in Seattle and Stumptown Coffee Roasters in Portland. Indeed, Joel Pollock, Stumptown's head roaster, says that he's thought of SF as a city offering only "really, really dark roasts and having no true interest in single origin." And when I ask Erna Knutsen—the grand dame who's run the SF-based importer Knutsen Coffees for the past 21 years (her beans end up at Thomas Keller's restaurants) -- what she thinks of her hometown's brew, she says this: "I'll give you a clue. I sell very little coffee in San Francisco."

Read the entire story in 7x7 San Francisco here.

Labels: coffee, media, san francisco

"Gertrude Stein famously said about her home town, Oakland, California, that 'there isn’t any there there.' Surely she would have a different opinion if she were there today and, in fact, many green urban advocates like us wish we were there."

Read the story at treehugger.com here.

"On the third Thursday of September 2006, in a college auditorium in Oakland, California, 300 people came together to launch a new movement: a campaign for 'green-collar jobs' as a path to economic and social recovery for low-income communities."

Read the story in Yes Magazine here.

Read about the Oakland Apollo Challenge here.

Labels: green, media, www

"...But now Mr. Schultz is questioning whether Starbucks' drive for growth and efficiency has diluted that experience. In a blunt Feb. 14 memo, he warned executives that the chain may be commoditizing its brand and making itself more vulnerable to competition from other coffee shops and fast-food chains. The nearly 800-word memo questioned whether Starbucks' automatic espresso machines, new store designs and elimination of some in-store coffee grinding may have compromised the 'romance and theatre' of a visit...

"...In his memo, Mr. Schultz wrote that when in recent years the company switched to automatic espresso machines -- which have been used in some stores for at least five years and currently are in thousands of outlets -- 'we solved a major problem in terms of speed of service and efficiency. At the same time, we overlooked the fact that we would remove much of the romance and theatre.' Starbucks used to have all its baristas pull espresso shots by hand...

"'...While the current state of affairs for the most part is self induced, that has lead [sic] to competitors of all kinds, small and large coffee companies, fast food operators, and mom and pops, to position themselves in a way that creates awareness...and loyalty of people who previously have been Starbucks customers. This must be eradicated,' he wrote..."

Read the entire article from the Wall Street Journal.

photo credit: © 1999-2006 Dries Buytaert Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

Labels: coffee, media