The "Where the hell is Modesto?" One

Let's get one thing straight, Fresno is boring.

I also have a love/hate relationship with Yelp. Yelp is awesome for finding good coffee, good food, even a good place to get your oil changed! But as a barista, I also hate yelpers that think they know something about coffee. "They didn't have a Carmel Macchiato, and NO syrups whatsoever!! How lame, I am giving them 2 stars until they can get it together", or "I'm not really a coffee drinker but...", these are the type of reviews that make up the hate portion of my relationship with Yelp; however, when it comes to the 5 days I spent in Fresno, that's part of the love relationship I have with Yelp, it lead me to Cafe Corazon.

I partially hoped that there might be a great coffee shop in Fresno, and I would have a reason to move closer to Chuck and Jill, so I anxiously drove over to Cafe Corazon. The reviews had mentioned single cup brewing and roasting in house, so I was mighty hopeful. Unfortunately, what I found at the cafe was not what I expected. Don't get me wrong, the coffee was roasted well, brewed well, and the staff of one, was a super sweet man that was obviously enjoying learning about coffee. The roaster was small, maybe a 3 kilo Deidrich roaster, they brewed on the Clever, with scales and all, and they had just received a small single group espresso machine. They weren't serving espresso yet though, they really were working on dialing in to serve good coffee. This place made me happy to have a spot to frequent in Fresno, but sad that they weren't bigger to offer a career coffee position. I bought a cup of the Honduras, which was just roasted the day before and  went back to Jill's to sleep before our trip the next morning.

We woke up, played a couple games of dominoes and headed north on the 99 towards Oakland.

While en route to Oakland, I decided to start compiling a list of all the spots I wanted to hit on my tour, and when I looked up I saw a sign that declared "Modesto 18 mi". Modesto? The last time I had even thought about Modesto was when I attended a conference there 10 years ago with my ex-boyfriend. I enjoyed it there, thought it was a cute town and loved the t-shirts they were selling that said "Where the f*ck is Modesto?". Then it hit me! I had heard that there was great coffee in Modesto! I saw an article on a place there in a Barista Magazine article last year at Coffee Fest! I Yelped it, and sure enough Serrano Social Club came up!

I was craving espresso, I had been without for almost a week! So we pulled of the exit and made our way to the Serrano Social Club! We walked in and the Baristi were super friendly, the ambiance was very "punk rock" and the coffee simply delicious! They serve multiple roasters and I had a wonderful espresso from Insight I believe, and a V60 that was brewed beautifully. The staff was super funny and intrigued with my tour plans and helpful with selection. They were even super sweet to by boy Chris, who had never been told no to a red eye, he gracefully accepted the espresso, on the side and the staff graciously sweetened his coffee with agave, he was enthralled with how good the coffee was. So much so that when we stopped on the way back, after the tour, he was drinking the coffee black, and asking questions about brewing at home, which made the staff at Serrano Social Club super happy!

All in all, Central California is vacant when it comes to good coffee, but with places like Cafe Corazon, and Serrano Social Club, I see great things in the near future for these areas, if not, I see myself frequenting these places on road trips, and recommending them to a whole lotta folk along the way.

What these first two shops showed me was this; that good coffee doesn't just happen, just like SCAA says, it takes work, and passion. Passion being the number one asset in that equation. I believe if you love whrat you do and work hard enough to become great at it, then you absolutely can not fail at following your dream. This is why while at Serrano, I dropped another resume, said my good byes and continued along the tour, not because I needed to find a job, which I did, but because I needed to find where my passion was going to fit into the scheme of things. I needed to keep going to truly discover why this journey was necessary, which is why I continue to lap my lip over great cups of joe, and continued to head north on the journey to finding out how passionate I truly am about this phenomenal industry we call Specialty Coffee...

The One Where I Ran Way

As of January 3rd, 2012  I was officially unemployed.

I've been here before, unemployed, scared, wanting to stay in coffee.

I guess a benefit of loving what you do for a living is that you know where to look for work. On the flip side of that, the coffee industry, at least the specialty coffee industry, is a hard egg to crack. Once you've worked somewhere that is "doing it right" it's nearly impossible to live with yourself and take a step backwards in to a cafe that is still serving hazelnut flavored coffee on tap, or even a place without an option for a pour over bar for that matter.

SO... the question was.. what now? I have a degree, I can go back to the corporate world of pushing paper and living 40 hours per week in a cubicle.. sure, it pays the bills; however, the movie Office Space was made for a reason.

What happens next in this tale is very typical of my life.

I left my job on the 3rd, slept all day the 4th, and on the 5th of January I made a decision to run. I packed up my good old duffel bag, which has traveled all over the country with me, loaded up my car - complete with my on the road brew bar, some snacks and I hit the road.

My intention was to pick up two of my buddies in Riverside, CA from Costa Mesa, CA and drive to Fresno for a couple of days to visit a friend of mine who just moved there with her family. They haven't been in Fresno long and were lonely for some company, so why not, right? The plan was to just visit, surprise Chuck and Jill, wait for Saturday when five more of our friends could join the party, turn around and drive the 3 hours home... simple, or so one might think.

En route to Riverside, I decided to stop at my friend Ani's house in Huntington Beach. Ani, her husband Jason and I became friends at my old shop, they had heard I was sad and distraught about work and wanted to help in anyway they could. I stopped in and we began to discuss options. I kindly explained my situation and how its super difficult to get into a good shop, even with a ton of experience. I went on to explain how small the coffee community is and even though I have a lot of connections, they were spread all over the country and I had no idea what was in store for me and my coffee future. The next thing I know, they are offering to fly me to San Francisco and Portland. Wow! They still have more confidence in my than I do...

Suddenly, I had a moment of clarity, perhaps stupidity, I'm still not sure. "GO!" is what they shouted! "Go find good coffee and apply!".. Then the hamster wheel in my brain started to accelerate. I have all my bills paid, and a severance coming, why not go? Ani and Jason handed me gas money and off I went.

I spent a week in Fresno with my friends and hit the ground running.

While in Fresno, I brewed so much coffee for my friends, talked about my career, about my dreams and aspirations and everyone of them revolved around coffee.

The decision was already made for me when I got a call back from Seattle and had an interview on that upcoming Friday... So I went. 

This is just the introduction to a series of blogs about my west coast coffee tour. . . 40 cafes in 10 days.

Fresno, Modesto, Oakland, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, LA and everything in between.. Stay tuned for my experience, reviews, compliments, complaints and journey of a lone barista looking for work and finding so much more in this amazing community that we call.. Specialty Coffee.

Cheers and enjoy the coffee.