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A SEAT AT THE TABLE continued from page 41 THE EQUIPMENT CONUNDRUM Before we answer that question, let's look at another query: Why does restaurant coffee suck? How can a restaurant churn out perfectly prepared foie gras one moment, then produce oily black sludge the next? First and foremost is restaurateurs' long-stand- ing perception that coffee doesn't matter to customers as much as wine, the star of most restaurants' drink programs. "There's a lot of focus put on the rest of the beverage program, and coffee has always been a secondary consideration," says Jay Caragay, owner of Maryland's Spro Coffee and an out- spoken foodie. But beyond percep- tion, the main element keeping restaurants from serving great cof- fee is a financial one. Historically, restaurants would partner with a cof- fee provider that would install equipment, train staff and then keep the restaurant stocked with beans. Equipment main- tenance might occur spo- radically, and training beyond the initial ses- sions wasn't common. Hence, as the months and years passed, the restaurant's coffee would decline into awful-tast- ing dreck. While that practice continues at some establishments, it's one that no longer interests many roast- ers. Barth Anderson, co- owner of Massachusetts' Barrington Coffee and supplier of coffee to res- taurants for nearly 20 years, sums it up: "A chef doesn't look to its meat purveyor to put their five-burner stove in place." Why, then, should a coffee roasting company be charged with footing the bill for a restaurant's coffee-making wares? Asking a restaurant to pay for coffee equipment complicates the equation. Like any business, restaurants are driven by margins, and the margins on selling coffee go down dramatically when you factor in equipment costs. Between espresso machines, grind- ers, batch brewers and more, restaurants are looking at roughly $10,000 to $20,000 to get started. "Let's say you serve 50 cups a night and you're open 300 days of the year," Anderson says. "Run 42 Fresh Cup Magazine freshcup.com the numbers, and all of a sudden that $20,000 investment is mak- ing that cup cost extraordinarily high." And if customers aren't clamoring for a better cup, why should the restaurateur be jumping through hoops—and paying premiums—to provide it? Edwin Martinez went through this thought process while working on the Canlis project. "There are some restaurant customers that recognize good coffee and care, but I don't think most of them do yet," he says. "And until that happens, you're essentially trying to say: 'OK this is a BMW. I know you don't know the difference between this and a Kia, but I'm going sell it to you, and you're going to drive away with it. And I'm going to think, you have no idea what you're driving.'" OVERCOMING THE ODDS If restaurant cus- tomers don't appreci- ate good coffee and it's more expensive to produce it, why should anyone involved go to the trouble? Perhaps the most compelling rea- son is that coffee is a taste experience just like every other component of a fine-dining meal. If a customer has just con- sumed a delightful din- ner but is then served a poor-quality cup of cof- fee, his or her memory of that meal will likely be colored in a negative light. Brandon Malcolm, who manages the cof- fee program for Atlanta fine-dining restaurant Empire State South, has learned this first-hand. "I've been to great dinners with famous chefs where you spend $200 or $300, but then you have a cup of coffee that may have been sitting in an urn for five hours," he says. "That just doesn't make sense to me." Coffee professionals stress that restaurants have the opportu- nity with their coffee to perfectly punctuate the meal. At Empire State South, the coffee service and the food menu adhere to the same principles—the restaurant uses Farmhouse, a blend from roaster Counter Culture that rotates based on which coffees are in season. "We liked the idea of that because our restaurant is based so much on seasonality, using what's local and what we CHRIS RYAN