3 weeks and change

Things have been going really smooth at the Third Rail. It’s not too surprising given the talent at work there. With VERY little direction from me (hi this is H btw) everyone took ownership of the place and did all the little (and not so little) things that need to be done to make a shop run smoothly. Unbelievable and not, all at once. I’d say the only major “snafu” has been the AC situation. I’ve received a major lesson in just how much heat is generated by fridges, ice machines, brewers etc. Many thanks for sweating it out and still staying “sunny and serious”!

That apt description of our approach came from Robin Raisfeld and Rob Patronite from New York Magazine who broke the news of our opening on Grub Street and then followed it up with a feature listing in the July 20-27 edition of the print mag! Special shout out to BoweryBoogie for being the first blogger to cover us from our very earliest stages through to opening, the invite to come in for a cup still stands stranger ; )
We were then fortunate enough to be introduced to Mike Hess who is a contributor to True/Slant.com. Mike was great and he and photog Ben Trivett came in one Sunday for a little chat and demo of how we’re brewing up our single origin offerings on the Chemex. They taped it with a neat little camera and have it up on the site now along with some photos (man I REALLY need a haircut!!!) I just hope the Dept. of Health doesn’t see it, but if they do, that dog is NOT in the shop, it’s an editing trick. Really.

These past three weeks have been among the best in my life. It’s been a lot of hard work and lord knows it was a real test to get here but it was all worth it. We feel really honored and blessed to be working with the people we do. We’ve received a tremendous amount of positive feedback from the community and from our customers. The support and well wishes we’ve received from our friends, families and the overall coffee community has been really great as well. It’s been cool seeing some old friends who’ve been rooting for us for some time now (looking at you Barnett, Clayton et al) and meeting some new ones, like Ben Kaminsky from Barismo who I owe a special thanks to for coming in and doing some work with us using his Extract Mojo (I know what I want for xmas now!) and Stephen Morrissey just yesterday who showed us a preview of a great video he just did on our favorite brewing method, the Chemex. The best part of it all, is that this is just the beginning and I truly think it will only get more interesting (and fun) from here on in.