Barista Profile - Kate Olson

MGC Cafe manager Kate Olson has been making lattes like this for years, first at Cold Creek Coffee in Laramie, WY, then at Oren's Daily Roast in NYC. Kate walked into the roaster one day, not long after finishing her masters degree in music, made a latte like this and she's pretty much been working with us since, helping plan the cafe menu, training staff and pulling shots 3-4 days a week.

When not involved in coffee, Kate plays jazz saxophone at several local clubs in both small and large bands, teaches music lessons and is in charge of an international music symposium that's coming to A2 this fall.

Music at Mighty Good, Sunday June 28th from 1:30 - 2:30. Glen Thomas Rideout will be singing and playing keyboard in the Workantile Loft. Cover charge is a the price of the best coffee drink we can make for you. Come on down, listen, drink coffee, meet some new friends and get a tour of Ann Arbor's newest work space for creative thinkers, e-tinkerers and philosophers.

Mighty Good Coffee is located at 118 S. Main St. in downtown Ann Arbor. Serving caffeinated (or not) beverages made from locally roasted coffee beans if the highest quality.

More about Glen:Glen Thomas Rideout, a native of Baltimore, Maryland, is an award-
winning conductor and baritone. Glen Thomas earned his bachelor’s
degree in voice from Vanderbilt University and a master’s degree from
the top- ranked conducting program at the University of Michigan - Ann
Arbor. Glen Thomas has studied voice with Gayle Shay, Jonathan
Retzlaff and Stephen West. His conducting mentors include Philip
Olsen, Robin Fountain, Paul Rardin and Jerry Blackstone.

Glen Thomas enjoys an active music minister, conductor and clinician,
having led the music ministries of congregations in Maryland,
Tennessee and Michigan. While serving as artistic director of the
Voices of Praise at Vanderbilt University, Glen Thomas facilitated the
choir's growth from 20 to 70 members in three years and remains the
choir's longest- serving elected director. While studying at the
University of Michigan, Glen Thomas won second prize in the National
Student Conducting Competition of the American Choral Director’s
Association. He has served as assistant conductor and resident
composer for the McDonogh Concert Choir's tours of Poland, Prague,
East Canada and Croatia. Upcoming conducting engagements include
concerts in Catalonia, Paris and Andorra. In addition, Glen Thomas has
founded chamber choirs in Maryland and Tennessee that continue to
provide unique leadership opportunities to aspiring young conductors
and music educators.

Glen Thomas’s work as a vocalist includes singing engagements include
work with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, the Mark Morris Dance
Group and the University of Michigan. An award- winning pianist, he
has served more than 15 churches, ministries and organizations as a
concert and worship service artist. Glen Thomas's compositions have
been performed in the United States and Europe, six of his gospel
songs having been recorded by the Holiday Choir of Hemingway Temple
A.M.E. Church in Baltimore, Maryland.

Glen Thomas has served the First Unitarian Universalist Congregation
of Ann Arbor as Director of Music since August, 2007.

Updates, Week 2

The MGC shop in now into its second week and things are running well so far. Biggest news is that our credit card machine is now working so we can accept MC/Visa with AmEx coming soon.

In other news, Len Swanson, our former delivery guy, is back this summer from the University of Oregon and working as our intern until mid-September. He's glad to be off the dorm coffee for the next few months.

Nicholas Handran is about to celebrate 1 year as a MGC employee and has really gotten involved with the whole process of our coffee from inventory of the green shipments to getting the home deliveries done on Monday and Thursday. In between he's been tasting A LOT of coffee and is well on his way to becomming a certified Coffee Geek.

We're open at the shop 7 days a week so stop on by.

First Day Complete!

We had our official first day today at MGC on Main St. Pretty good traffic and I got to see some friends too.

Kate Olson, our shop manager and barista extraordinaire is opening each morning this week serving up fantastic hand crafted lattes and my favorite macchiato.

We're opening every weekday at 8 am, 9 on Saturday and 10 on Sunday. We'll be here late on Friday June, 12 for the Green Fair and Bike Fests on Main St. Come on down!

Menu for June 9th

Mighty Good Opens Doors

I have been waiting for this day for a long time. I absolutely love having coffee lovers come in the doors of our new coffee shop on Main St. We opened up today for a 4 hour trial run. 6 baristi in the House and plenty of friends, family and a few new friends too. Our friend Kim Bayer came by and posted a few photos and notes on her wonderful blog. She also invited us back to participate in the annual Pie Lovers Unite event to benefit Slow Food Huron Valley Saturday, July 25th from 7 - 9 at the Ladies Literary Club in Ypsilanti. We enjoyed some fine treats from Tim at Old World Bakery and Sava Cafe sent over a plate of hummus, veggies and pita for the crew to knosh on.

The coffee flowed continuously all day with lattes make by Kate Olson a big hit with everyone.

Mike Kessler took time out of his day to give tours to the new Workantile Exchange shared work environment which is up and running and has a growing and diverse group of members that provides great interchange for everyone involved.

We're taking Monday to re-group and Tuesday morning at 8 am, we'lll be open during regular business hours. Check the header on our site for the latest info.

David

Compostable Bags

A lot of my friends (i.e. coffee junkies) have been asking about the new bags we're using for home delivery customers. Most of them assume that this was a cost issue, not an environmental issue and I quietly explain that this was not the motivation for the switch. Rather, it's a response to many comments I've gotten as well as my own feeling that when possible, we should do what's possible to reduce our footprint.

You may remember that about a year ago, we also switched our home delivery plastic bags to a recyclable bag. The new compostable bags are just an extension of the process.

As well, on my recent trip to visit various roasters / coffee shops in the San Francisco area, I noticed that across the board, all were using this type of bag. So onto the bandwagon I go...

Instructions for composting are printed on the bottom of the bag.