detourcoffee blog

Well, it was a long road getting here but on Easter weekend we officially opened the roastery to the public.  The last few weeks leading up to opening (besides working long days in my normal job) were spent getting things ready and tweaking roast profiles.  We featured five coffees for the launch:

• Tanzanian Peaberry Songea
• Guatemalan Oriente Tzampetey (our French Roast)
• Mexican Coatapec Especial
• El Salvador Finca Suiza
• Punch Buggy Espresso

There were many last minute preparations to finish, including installing a set of french doors on the inside of the shop so our big steel industrial doors could be swung open to allow customers to peek in.  As soon as I put out our new sandwich boards, courtesy of amazingToronto artist Matt Durant, people started pouring into the shop.   I invited people to try samples of any of the coffees off our pourover station or espresso from the GS3 and response was favourable.  I think people appreciated being able to try coffees before buying and many also tried the coffees black.  The day went better than I expected, so much so that I completely sold out of the 35lbs or so I had on offer.

We just finished our follow up weekend and it was also a success.  Saturday was busy, albeit not as busy as the Saturday of Easter weekend.  I also opened the shop today which is a Sunday.  I had a feeling that Sundays in Dundas might be a bit of a challenge.  Most stores are closed, especially the specialty food shops: Cumbrae’s,  Picone’s, and Mickey McGuire’s.  I’m re-evaluating the decision to open on Sundays and am looking at opening on Thursday and Friday afternoons instead.  We will update our hours on the website if we make a change.

Dark Horse West

Dark Horse West Bar

This past week, our friends at Dark Horse Espresso Bar in Toronto swung open the doors on their second location on Spadina north of Queen St.  I was hoping to be the first through their doors at 7am before I started my “day job” but someone beat me to it!  I was really excited to see them up and running after much delay and difficulty with the city of Toronto.

Ed and Deanna have been such a huge support to me in starting Detour and I was very touched to see some of the Tanzanian Peaberry I dropped to them last week make it onto their menu board “Roasted by Detour Coffee Roasters”!

They have done an amazing job with the space.  It is a huge space (probably the biggest espresso bar in the city) and features an very long service bar and two of their signature communal tables made from bowling alley flooring.

It’s great to have witnessed the rise of independent cafes in Toronto.  A recent Toronto Life article mentioned a recent explosion of even more independent cafes to hit the city despite the current economic climate (maybe the climate created it?).   Three years ago I predicted the rise of the independents in Toronto.  Indeed there was some sort of Zeitgeist going on because before I knew it, Mercury Espresso Bar, Dark Horse Espresso, and Manic were on the scene.  What’s interesting is that this first run of cafes seem to have already spawned these more recent progeny.

Another recent opening we wanted to mention, although not local, is our friends at Coffea in South Dakota.  A couple of weeks ago they opened their new shop (not in the mall anymore!).  Jon and Paul have been a great resource for me, especially because we happen to be using 2 of the same coffees!  Unfortunately I’m not going to make it to SCAA conference this year where they will have a booth.