Cricketscoffee Blog

You  go to Best Buy and get a new IPhone and the Iphones are right next to Tide and fabric softener or your favorite coffee? The main stream media offers an explainer about why big box stores are busting out of their main categories. The story is that retailers are using such staples to increase  traffic and make up for some of the profits that they’ve lost to online retail competitors.   Richfield-based Best Buy sayes the strategy is “floor optimization.” The consumables may help the big retailers close the gap in what may be a permanent drop in traffic as Americans buy more online.  Stocking products from outside a store’s basic brand is becoming more common,  In 2007 Wisconsin-based Menards added a grocery department to many of its stores with frozen pizza, cereal, condiments, cookies, chips, canned goods and soda right next to the nails and hammers. – but no produce or fresh meats. The company began offer...

  Bottom's Up, just opened in Bakersfield Calf. at the corner of Stockdale and Allen, it's brewed problems up in some of its other locations. The Owner Alexandra Ireland has recently said they recently changed the menu at their Clovis location, removing some of the more risky-titled selections after community feedback. The Bakersfield location opened this last Thursday. Ireland was on hand Friday and described Bottom's Up as a combination of great customer service, great drinks and sexy women. "I think any time you go outside of the box, there will be people that judge you. I think what we're doing is a lot of fun," Ireland said. "We're trying to be one of those businesses that aren't failing, and we're trying to have a lot of fun."

First it was indy rock star Murphy with a special coffee blend: Now it's Intelligentsia, who has collaborated with St. Vincent for her signature coffee. It's called "Bring Me Your Mugs" (after her sound track "Bring Me Your Loves"). It's available now in Intelligentsia stores. Clark's coffee is from Intelligentsia's "Flecha Roja" project in Costa Rica. The regular "Flecha Roja" blend features notes of "poached pear, rosewater, and yellow plum".

  BUYING OLD BEANS “Make sure you choose a coffee with a roast date, not a ‘best by’ date. Preferably, that date should be no longer than a week ago. Then use it up, share it with friends, or buy smaller bags so you move through it quickly. Sometimes lightly roasted coffee can be good for a couple of weeks after opening, but in general, fresher is better.” GRINDING IN ADVANCE “Buy whole-bean coffee. Ground coffee gets stale really easily. Buying a grinder just isn’t that hard: It’s not that expensive, and doesn’t take that long. If you’re doing the pulse-and-shake method on a cheapo blade grinder, I think you’re still better off than buying pre-ground coffee that’s been sitting in a bag for a week or God knows how long.

CaffeinAll  has been around since last year. So what's new you ask? Selling caffeine in a salt shaker is. Caffex isn't the only company trying to find ways to get you to take caffeine. But why? It's an odorless white powder.   Getting your caffeine hit from that salad all the, "eat healthy crowd" is always harping on, just might sell.   Anyway just how long will it be before you can get your THC hit in a salt shaker also.   In Washington state the list of ways to get a marijuana buzz is getting longer by the day.   So, hold the salt and pass the caffeine.          

  Tuesday morning, the subject of Seattle City Council and its recent decision to raise its minimum wage to $15 is what trended briefly at Seattle coffee shops. “How did they settle on $15? That’s what they want to know. That would put me out of business,” the owner's said.    There is no good answer for them. Ohio’s minimum wage is $7.95. Which is about what most Mom and Pop coffee shops pays their employees.    When  offered  that supporters behind the wage measure saw this as the first step to trying to rebuild that city’s middle class, owners laughed. When they were told that Seattle Mayor Ed Murray triumphantly declared the wage hike, to be phased in over a few years, to be a useful model for the rest of the nation, profanity came on loud and strong.    Howard Schultz, chairman and CEO of Starbucks, a Seattle-based company. Schultz is a billionaire. But here’s where both...

   Keurig is using methods to stop the use of off brand coffee pods; its upcoming Keurig 2.0 will have ways to sense the Keurig tags and limit you to official brews. Unfortunately for the company, those added measures may be for a waste of time. TreeHouse Foods, has sued Keurig for allegedly abusing a monopoly with its 2.0 system, sayes that it should take just a short period of time to defeat the K-cup technology. The discovery should keep TreeHouse selling pods that cost significantly less than Keurig's, 2.0 system and it could also stop similar schemes in other companies' coffee makers. Keurig hasn't offered any comment on the possible defeating of it's 2.0 system. Like Nestle and its Nespresso system, Keurig is protecting it's sales model where it sells (the brewer) at cost and depends on the high profit (K-cups) to make up the difference. ...

J.M. Smucker Co has announces that it has raised list prices on most of its U.S. packaged coffee, mainly Folgers and Dunkin' Donuts brands because of soaring green coffee costs. Smucker increased prices by about 9% due to increasing bean prices, the company said.    The price increase by large U.S. roasters is not unexpected after arabica coffee futures prices increased nearly 90 percent within three months to a 2 year high in April on worries that Brazil's worst drought in decades would devastate crops in the world's biggest producer.

  According to a recent AP article, Starbucks will open a café in LA that will have a "modern farmhouse" theme. The restaurant will sell wine, beer, cocktails, and milkshakes and ...are you ready for this... "build-your-own burgers" among other things. Is Starbucks trying to use Wal-Marts business model or perhaps Mc.Donalds. Starbucks do what you do best, sell coffee! What's next Starbuck paints and varnishes?

 A cup of brewed coffee has only 2 about calories but no fat. However if you load up your coffee with all of those goodies, at home or your the coffee shop, you also add calories. See how many calories 1 tablespoon of these extras can add to your coffee: Heavy whipping cream: 52 calories Table sugar: 49 calories Half-and-half: 20 calories Fat-free milk: 5 calories  When you're at the coffee shop, check out the nutrition information before you order. Some coffee drinks are more like fried food and can have hundreds of calories. Remember that when it comes to loosing weight, all calories count. Fried coffee now there's an idea.

  A morning coffee is getting a little more like getting high. Marijuana coffee is coming to the state of Washington. The cold-brewed THC-loaded coffee, called Legal, is expected to be out in early July.    Each bottle contains about 20 milligrams of THC. Sales are to be up and running by early July. The 11.5-ounce bottles would probably retail between $9 and $11. Ouch sounds a little pricy.