 Hello dear readers! If you regularly read this blog you would know that we have been doing a little spotlight on each of our staff members for the past few weeks. The purpose of this is for you, our customers, to feel more familiar with the people who are making and serving you your coffee! This week we asked Miriam to answer a few questions, so let's get right into it!
Q. Why do you make coffee? A. I make coffee because I love the community that it creates. There’s just something about standing behind the counter taking or making a coffee order that makes asking questions and getting to know new people so fun! Q. What is your go-to order right now? A. A flat white with hazelnut on oat milk! Q. What do you want to do with coffee in the future? A. I want to continue to use coffee to build an atmosphere of community and belonging. I think everyone deserves a place to call home and a group to call family, so I want to create a space where people can find that! Q. What country do you really want to visit and why? A. I really want to visit Greece and Malta because they are so beautiful and have a lot of history attached to them! Q. How many siblings do you have and what was your favorite part about growing up with them? A. I have 6 siblings- one brother (he is the oldest) and 5 older sisters. My favorite part of growing up with them was the holidays. We had some fun traditions and lots of food! Fun fact: the only vehicle large enough to fit us was a 12 passenger GMC white van that we would pile into in birth order! We love having Miriam as a part of our team, she is incredibly skilled in making coffee and is such a joy to be around! We hope you have a beautiful and restful weekend and we look forward to seeing you when you come into The Meeting Place Cafe! Be sure to tell us that you follow our blog! Blessings, TMPC
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 Good Afternoon! For this weeks blog post, we would like to continue our staff spotlight! Joanna has been with us for about three months and is also one of our baristas! Here are some questions we asked her!
Q. Why do you make coffee? A. I love the atmosphere it creates. Coffee has a great way of bringing people together and creating a chill environment where people feel comfortable. Q. How many languages do you speak? A. Three and a half. English, French, Spanish, and learning Portuguese. Q. What is your go-to order right now? A. Cappuccino with hazelnut syrup Q. What do you want to do with coffee in the future? A. I want to open a cafe- hostel that will help broken and abused people get back on their feet, while also giving travelers and community members a safe place to relax and build friendships. Q. What is your favorite food? A. Sushi! Our hope in continuing to share more about our staff team is that you, our customer, will feel more connected to the people who are making and serving you your coffee! Our cafe exists not only to serve you drinks, but also to build relationships with you! Enjoy your weekend and stay safe! Blessings, TMPC  Hello and happy Friday to all of you who are reading this! As you may or may not know, last week we posted a little spotlight on one of our baristas, asking some questions to help you, our customers, get to know the people who are making and serving your coffee! This week we would like to continue with this little series! Ana has been on staff with us for almost nine months and here are some questions we asked her!
Q. Why do you make coffee? A. Because coffee brings people together. There is nothing quite like the feeling of sitting around a table or sitting around the house with people you love and enjoying a good cup of coffee. Coffee is also soothing and comforting when the day seems hard and when there seems to be nothing exciting happening, a coffee break makes everything so much better. Q. How many countries have you been to? A. 17 Q. What is your go to order right now? A. Cappuccino with one pump of vanilla Q. What do you want to do with coffee in the future? A. I want to open a coffee shop along with a bed and breakfast and be able to use it as a ministry to bless the local community but also to provide jobs and a better life for people who are in difficult situations. Q. What is your favorite thing about cafe culture? A. When groups of friends gather and laugh and have a good time over coffee and pastries We look forward to meeting you, don't forget to mention that you have seen our blog when you come in! Blessings, TMPC  Do you want to know a little bit more about the people who are making your coffee here at The Meeting Place Cafe? Well, you're in luck because we are doing a staff spotlight this week on one of our baristas!! Maddie Mae is one of our newest baristas, she joined our team in September of this year! Here are some of the questions we asked her:
Q. Why do you make coffee? A. "It's very exciting to me! The more I learn, the more it intrigues me, and there's so much more to coffee than you would expect there to be." Q. Have you always liked coffee? A. "No. I started to really like coffee at the beginning of this year." Q. What is your favorite drink? A. "Iced caramel latte." Q. What do you want to do with coffee in the future? A. "I want to open my own cafe and have it be a beautiful community where people come to hang out and meet people, but also just enjoy each other and good coffee!" Q. What is your favourite thing about cafe culture? A. "Meeting new people." We look forward to sharing more about our other staff members and we hope that you enjoyed learning a little bit about Maddie! Our staff team is very friendly and loves meeting new people, so please feel welcome to come and hang out with us over a good cup of coffee! Blessings, TMPC  If you are anything like us, we absolutely love a pretty cup of coffee! Who doesn’t love designs on their coffee?! Well, this kind of art, known as latte art, is not an easy skill to master. It requires time and patience, practice and determination, it requires a good shot of espresso and perfectly steamed milk! But who’s idea was it to put milk drawings on top of a shot of espresso?! Well, the first place to be known for creating this concept is said to be the country of Italy, however the US is given the credit for making this idea go mainstream in the late 1980’s. I will attach a link so that you can see pictures of the process from cold milk to poured latte art!!
Check out this website: https://bluebottlecoffee.com/preparation-guides/milk-and-art Other information sourced from: https://www.baristainstitute.com/inspiration/history-and-basics-latte-art Enjoy!! TMPC  Have you ever heard someone in front of you ordering a coffee with a Ristretto shot? If you’re anything like me, you stop and think "wait, what is that?!" Well good thing you’re reading this because I’d like to explain it to you! Ristretto in Italian means ‘resitricted’. Essentially, this shot is pulled shorter than your normal espresso shot. The process of creating ristretto is the same as a normal single or double shot, but instead of letting the shot pull for the full length of time, it is pulled much shorter. Because of this, the amount of coffee that you are getting is much less, but hat doesn’t mean that there is less caffeine content. “Since a ristretto is an overall shorter pull than an espresso, the final drink is a slightly sweeter, more concentrated flavor that plays out without any bitterness.” Every cafe is different, but in our cafe it works something like this: a normal shot will pull on average for about 30 seconds and a ristretto shot will pull for about 15 seconds! I hope that you find this helpful and feel excited about ordering your next coffee with a ristretto shot just to try it out!!
(information in quotations taken from https://perfectdailygrind.com/2015/06/extraction-wars-espresso-vs-ristretto/ )  This week we'd like to explore a few unique cafés from around the world!
Sorry Coffee Co (Canada) “What's truly different about the Sorry Coffee Co is its unique branding. The Sorry cafe logo that appears on signage and cups is drawn by a local designer and before anyone has a chance to get bored of it, it changes. Every three months, the cafe logo is replaced by a brand new one. Sorry also provides pencils to customers, encouraging them to create art on their cups and come up with their own cafe logo designs.” (https://www.trendhunter.com/trends/cafe-logo) Little Man Cafe (Australia) “The Little Man Cafe is a quaint suburban cafe in Melbourne, Australia that was recently born out of a massive transformation of an old Post Office building. The minimalist all-white space is now a homey outpost for coffee lovers and those in need of a snack in a friendly environment. The cafe is designed in a way that makes it resemble a pristine home kitchen..” The idea of this cafe is that you feel like you are just hanging out in your kitchen having breakfast and sipping your coffee! (https://www.trendhunter.com/trends/former-post-office-building) (https://www.littlemancafe.com) Cafe 27 (Beijing) “Located in Beijing, Cafe 27 is a charming new greenhouse cafe that was designed by Shanghai-based Four O Nine. Boasting a creative organic menu and a stunning supply of natural lighting, Cafe 27 is situated within a glass building that former housed a greenhouse.” “Cafe 27 is a charming and aesthetically pleasing example of green architecture and of spaces designed to stimulate one's senses.” (https://www.trendhunter.com/trends/greenhouse-cafe) Foghound (South Africa) “..is an innovative repurposed shipping container. Despite its industrial and rugged facade, its interior is a sleek and modern cafe and showroom… The contemporary retail space combines a permanent glass-covered structure, with shipping containers acting as an ancillary element in the overall design” (https://www.trendhunter.com/trends/repurposed-shipping-container) (https://www.foghound.co.za) This is just a glimpse into the endless creative realm of cafes around the world! Let us know of any really incredible cafes that you have visited on your travels! Dear readers, I know that none of us were expecting to come into this year and have to learn what social distancing looks like or having to work from home for the first time, and possibly having to frequent your favorite local restaurants and cafe less. Yikes! Who could have known?! But in light of the current circumstances, we as The Meeting Place Cafe staff were reflecting on some of the positive things that have come out of this season for all of us, and we created a few points that we wanted to share with you. Here are the top three things that have challenged us to grow most! 1. Relationships- We all have a group of even a handful of friends that we like to catch up with at a cafe or meet up with for an adventure, but that had to change for a little while which was tough, but also showed us something about our relationships. We found that a space was created for one on one meet ups, forcing us to go deeper in our relationships and really talk and get to know our friends on a much more personal level. This is really beautiful, as we often fall into the habit of ignoring the real "stuff" when we're with our friends and we ignore the sometimes difficult realities and instead we try to focus on having fun and unwinding when we see each other. But we have started to ask questions like "how are you really doing?" There were also a lot less people in the cafes which allowed for customers to get to know staff better! I personally started having regular little chats with the staff of one of my favorite cafes in the area, and am happy to say that we are all on first name basis now! 2. Skillset- We decided that this was a good time to improve our coffee skills and make our drinks better and more consistent! We have been working on our latte art! We were even adding little personalized notes on the cups of our customers! But we also know that it wasn't just us, but plenty of other companies and coffee shops really took advantage of a slower season to make sure everything is up to the best level! Only the best for you! 3. Creativity- We have had to find new ways of reaching out to people and make sure that people still knew we cared about them and had been thinking of them even when we were closed. We recently started a prayer request jar where people can let us know how we can be praying for them! It has been great to take time to talk to our regulars and keep up with their lives! I know there are a lot more positives that have come out of this season, but also am not unaware of the difficult things that we have had to go through. If you are someone who needs some encouragement please don't hesitate to reach out as we would love to hear from you. Many blessings to you, Love TMPC    “This is a passion for us, not just a job, and we believe that makes all the difference in your cafe experience"
To our faithful readers, we would like to take this time to thank you for your dedication to reading our blogs and for staying up to date with us as The Meeting Place Cafe. We felt it would be a nice refresher to go back to the basics and answer the question of “why do you exist and why are you different?” We get this question often, especially when people order and then hear the phrase “the suggested donation is…” If you have come to our cafe, you would know that we are a donations based coffee shop that exists for the purpose of serving quality coffee in an environment that builds community. We are here to bless people and to offer coffee to anyone and everyone who comes through our doors, whether they can pay for it or not. It is our hope and desire that everyone who walks through these doors would feel welcomed and know that this is a place where you as a customer are seen and heard, you are valued, and appreciated, and we care about you and what you have to say. The staff at The Meeting Place cafe are easy to talk to and interested in hearing your stories and keeping up with what’s happening in your life. But why is this the case? We are a group of volunteers who are passionate about God and about making Him known to the world. We believe that the greatest commandment found in the Bible says "Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.” The staff at The Meeting Place Cafe are all volunteers who come from all over the world in order to train and practice how to run a coffee shop both as a business and also as a ministry, they are young people who have a heart for missions and for reaching many different kinds of people through their businesses. They come here to learn how it’s all done and how they can go and take this idea into other countries and therefore be a blessing to other communities. This is a passion for us, not just a job, and we believe that makes all the difference in your cafe experience. If you haven’t had a chance to come by and have a coffee, please don’t hesitate any longer and when you do come, let us know that you have been reading our blog! It is an honour and a privilege to be able to serve coffee and spread hope and joy no matter who you are or what you believe. We love and appreciate you and look forward to seeing you come through our doors! |
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