The Coffee Lover’s Guide To Las Vegas

Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada welcome sign with palm trees

If you’re going to Las Vegas, you’re going for glitz, you’re going for glamour, you’re going to indulge in a lifestyle far outside of your normal one. You’re going for smoky casinos and 30-minute Ferris wheels. You’re going for celebrity chefs and the potential of hitting it big. What you were not going for, until only recently, was coffee. For coffee lovers who’ve relegated themselves to a vacation amongst the deep-fried Twinkies and 100-story-tall Celine Dion posters, the options have been historically slim—doomed to the losing odds of a ceramic mug of casino coffee. Yet, if you are a specialty coffee-minded individual who also enjoys a Vegas vacation, you are now aligned with lady luck, because, though ever slowly, a Las Vegas specialty coffee scene has started to emerge.

To fully see the Las Vegas coffee sights, those scant few burning brightly in the darkness, you’ll need a car, at least a few hours, and of course, you’ll need a guide, this guide. Sprudge spent a whirlwind four days in Las Vegas digging through the desert sands to discover the next (first?) wave of Las Vegas specialty coffee, and now we share our good fortune with you.

Sambalatte Torrefazione

If you have managed to book yourself a room at Treasure Island but don’t want to order a Pumpkin Spice Latte over the sneeze guard at the downstairs Starbucks, Las Vegas’ superficial ode to all things razzle-dazzle, The Strip, now has a viable option: Luis Oliveira’s fourth entry into his Las Vegas mini-chain—Sambalatte Torrefazione. The massive space on the ground floor of the Monte Carlo has been self-described by Oliveira as a “theater of coffee,” and with its towering signage, 100-foot television screens blasting solid latte art pours, and the voyeuristic street level view into its roaster, it oftentimes exceeds the bill. Don’t let the Las Vegas smoke and mirrors turn you off though, under the tutelage of local coffee connoisseur Mason Salisbury, the staff is knocking out some solid drinks to a volume of customers most coffee shops can’t even imagine. So when mashing the screen on your slot machine starts to wear you down, Sambalatte Torrefazione is your go-to spot on The Strip.

Sambalatte Torrefazione is located at 3770 South Las Vegas Boulevard. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Sunrise Coffee

Joshua Walter, the owner of Sunrise Coffee, didn’t open the homey cafe—tucked away in the shell of a former It’s A Grind across the street from Sunset Park and a block away from Wayne Newton’s expansive domicile—to introduce specialty coffee to Las Vegas. He just wanted to introduce his hometown to an idea that was sorely lacking: a spot where people could come and talk and enjoy a decent cup of coffee outside of the scorching heat. This is not your minimalist, highfalutin, Bay Area specialty joint. This is, as Walter’s planned it to be, a cozy spot for folks to gather and nibble on a selection of vegan sandwiches and burritos while sipping on high-quality coffee that’s skillfully and thoughtfully roasted at Walter’s other spot, Mothership Coffee. Though Sunrise, with its 20-ounce lattes, might not sate the experiential palates of the truly coffee snobby, it’s a place designed to help foster community, but also to offer an opportunity to nascent coffee drinkers to take their first steps into a broader, more delicious world of coffee.

Sunrise Coffee is located at 3130 East Sunset Road. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

Makers & Finders Coffee

Downtown Las Vegas is, if you’re seeking a respite from clumps of chain-smoking tourists and the smell of stale beer, your very best bet. This is, if everything works out, the future of “cool” Las Vegas. Specialty cocktail bars, art installations, one of the best bookstores in the country (The Writer’s Block), and, of course, some of the best coffee in town. Valeria Varela and Josh Molina, the 20-something co-owners of Makers & Finders Coffee, have created a spot that not only hews to the chic tenants of specialty coffee, but also offers a bustling community space with a delicious, relaxed Latin-centric food program. This is a place you can spend your entire day at, wolfing down a couple empanadas or an eggs benedict while sipping on a pour-over or a lavender latte (one of Makers & Finders beloved specialty drinks). And though operating a specialty coffee shop in Las Vegas can be trying, as Valera says, “It’s about finding a balance to appeal to as many people as possible without changing your concept. Because, you can be the ripest peach in the world, but it doesn’t matter if someone doesn’t like peaches.”

Makers & Finders is located at 1120 South Main Street #110. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Mothership Coffee

Just down the street from Sunrise Coffee is Joshua Walter’s gorgeous sister shop, Mothership Coffee. Like so many other hidden gems in the Las Vegas treasure chest, Mothership is ensconced in a dusty strip mall next to a grocery store. If you didn’t know it was there, you’d drive right past it. And you’d have missed one of Las Vegas’ brightest, up-and-coming cafes. With Sunrise Coffee pumping out drinks just a few blocks away, Mothership is Walter’s foray into true specialty coffee. He roasts for Mothership and Sunrise and a handful of wholesale accounts in the back while offering up a solid selection of single-cup and espresso-based drinks in the front. And though Mothership is clearly aimed at the coffee aficionado, Walter and his staff know that the Las Vegas community is still getting used to specialty coffee. You won’t find attitude or judgment at Mothership, you’ll find some of Las Vegas’ best coffee, a gorgeous space, and friendly, smiling staff who want to help build the foundations of a new coffee scene. Also, you’ll find a spread of pastries and handcrafted local chocolates that’ll make your belt tight and your mouth water. Do not miss out.

Mothership Coffee is located at Green Valley Plaza, 2708 North Green Valley Parkway, Henderson. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

PublicUs

You wouldn’t expect one of the US’s most formidable coffee minds to set up his new coffee shop in Las Vegas. But that is exactly what Cole McBride, a fixture within competitive coffee, did when he with the help of his partners opened PublicUs in 2015. And what a place it is. Situated on the edge of the once vaunted Downtown Project, PublicUs is the type of cafe you visit a city, even Las Vegas, to experience. It’s the fundamentals of a coffee shop elevated to their very best: everything from coffee prep to food to furniture to the handles on the doors to the bathroom, thought out to the nth degree. Everything is either made in-house, or exhaustively researched and sourced from the highest quality providers. It isn’t that PublicUs is flawless or without character, it’s that McBride has dedicated himself to creating a coffee shop that adheres to his extremely high standards for food and beverage, but also, customer service. With microroasted batches from Velton Ross in Everett, Washington, a selection of quirky, almost-cocktail like specialty drinks, a “kitchen table” spread of truly excellent food, and a staff that goes out of their way to provide the very best version of what their customers want, this place is not only the best coffee shop in Las Vegas, but handily, one of the best in the country.

PublicUs is located at 1126 Fremont Street. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Noah Sanders (@sandersnoah) is a Sprudge.com staff writer based in San Francisco, and a contributor to SF Weekly, Side One Track One, and The Bold Italic. Read more Noah Sanders on Sprudge.

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Beyond Cows and Horses

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L. J. Hand's New Booth

Our favorite farm store has a booth under the grandstand this year. It is very attractive and has Peggy-approved lollipops as well.

You can sign up for drawings to win cool stuff, chat with the nice people taking care of things, and check out the fine products offered.

Make sure to stop by when you visit the fair. 

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Peggy at the Fair

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Build-Outs Of Summer: Clatter Coffee of Frostburg, Maryland

Another day, another cool build-out in a college town. This time it’s Frostburg, Maryland, home to Morgan State University—go Bears!—and Clatter Coffee, located in the heart of the Arts and Enterprise District.

As told to Sprudge by John Felton of Clatter Coffee. 

For those who aren’t familiar, will you tell us about your company?

Clatter Coffee will be the first to bring a true specialty coffee experience to Frostburg, a small college town in the mountains of western Maryland. There have been espresso machines, but not passion, not attention to quality of product or precision of craft.

We mean to make that kind of intentionality our brand (along with a customer-focused earnestness) and to bring it to every aspect of our business. Not least of which will be our build-out.

Can you tell us a bit about the new space?

In January we bought a 100-year-old two-story building in the heart of Frostburg, Maryland’s new Arts and Enterprise district, with two storefronts and two apartments above. Although essentially solid, there was a lot to do before we could get to the fun part. We began a somewhat surgical gutting, sorting, and setting aside every beautiful rough cut piece of wood, everything with potential for creative re-use. Community volunteers helped us pull nails and organize. As of this writing, we are finally able to start framing the actual shop as the customer will experience it.

The plan is to have the first storefront be the actual coffee shop, 15-feet x 45-feet, with a cozy variety of the seating you’d probably expect. Beyond that, an L-shaped bar that seats seven, and beyond that the kitchen.

The second side would have our stage (constructed of the old floorboards from the coffee side) and additional seating/community space/rentable space.

The design for the façade is about clean lines and lots of light, re-use, and juxtapositions of old and new, smooth/rough, urban/agricultural.

The first thing one will notice when entering are the walls, which will be a collage of horizontally running boards of different types of wood, colors, sizes, and textures, saved from the building renovation. Next, one would notice the bar, with a knowledgeable and welcoming barista presiding.

What’s your approach to coffee?

Our approach to coffee is that excellence is for everyone. Why not just do it right?

We want a regular cup of black coffee to impress. We want our customers to see that we are interested in all that a cup of coffee or espresso can be. In our market, we have to prove that we’re not about “fancy shmancy” snobbishness, but about quality work, attention to detail, and craftsmanship.

Still, all of our coffee focus is really about customer focus. We put effort and intention into each aspect of delivering this product, but not to draw attention to the barista or his/her knowledge. It is only partly to draw attention to the coffee, although that’s a necessary part, because what we want to communicate is, “This can be a really special thing. I put care into making it because I hope it will be a good experience for you.”

We like coffee crisp and bold with complexities worth talking about. We’ll offer both drip and manual brewing methods. Our espresso drink menu is straightforward, using milk from a nearby farm and only homemade syrups. We don’t think of that as too much of a statement—mostly just that it’s already in our skill set, will taste better, be unique to us, and set us apart from other places around here. It also fits our brand and the DIY zeitgeist of our area.

One of our big choices as far as approach to coffee was who to partner with as our roaster. We are really happy and excited to be partnering with Little Amps Coffee Roasters from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

“Our approach to coffee is still very much influenced by the Bay Area scene in the mid-2000s that first turned Aaron, our roaster, on to specialty coffee,” writes Peter Leonard. “Our brewed coffees are mostly from Central America and East Africa, which is par for the course these days.

Roasting coffee for the better part of six years has helped us hone in on what we like and what we want our coffee to taste like. We stay on the more developed end of roasting, which again may harken back to the pre-Nordic invasion, West Coast approach to specialty coffee in the States. We really like juicy, syrupy, fully body coffee with rich stone fruits, berries, and chocolates. Balanced acidity and sweetness are crucial as well!

We’ve always been focused on perfecting our roasting and brewing methods, but we have recently become more proactive in perfecting our green buying. We currently buy from a number of importers ranging from the very small, Colombia focused Tusa Specialty Coffee, to international but small-ish Collaborative Coffee Source, who luckily have a HQ in Central PA, to the ubiquitous specialty importer Cafe Imports. These companies, and a few others peppered in between those size levels, all have a slightly different approach to buying and we can flow between them based on what we’re shopping for. And what are we shopping for? Great coffee. Sometimes we need a value buy, or something blend specific, sometimes we want to splurge on a bag or two of something extra amazing, and sometimes we are looking for coffee from producers that we can connect and can grow with.

A great example of that is Isais Fernandez in Santa Barbara, Honduras. David Stallings of CCS helped us buy a few bags of Isais’ coffee last year, with the understanding we’d buy more this year. We were honored to have two of the five bags he produced this year, and to be the only roaster on the East Coast with this coffee. But it’s not just about the story or the boutique-ness of it. This coffee was SO nice. Our cuppings consistently produced strong notes of bergamot, orange essence, strawberry, and caramel. This is the essence of what we shop for: sweet, balanced coffees with a syrupy body and strong, clean finish.”

Any machines, coffees, special equipment lined up?

Our head barista is excited to be using an Athena Leva three-group. We’ll be using a Mahlkönig Tanzania and Mazzer Major for our main grinders, and a FETCO CBS 2132XTS 3L for drip coffee. We also look forward to pour-overs using Beehouse ceramic brewers and some other manual brews.

What’s your hopeful target opening date/month?

We plan to open in September.

Are you working with craftspeople, architects, and/or creatives that you’d like to mention?

Yes. Our project designer is Stephen Manger. He is a longtime compatriot, veteran chef, builder and carpenter, fine artist, draftsman, problem-solver, and brilliant if sometimes truculent conversationalist. He brings pragmatism to big ideas so they come true. His “Why not just do it right?” attitude, a keen aesthetic sense, and an appreciation for the potential of discarded things combine to bring us a look that is elegant, sophisticated, mutt-sturdy, and strong.

We are starting out with two experienced baristas: Greg Bender comes to us from Nashville, Tennessee, and Caleb Lange, from Grand Rapids, Michigan, both with well-honed skills, great ideas, and a taste for adventure.

Our web presence is being designed by Tyler Harvey.

 

Clatter Coffee is located at15 South Broadway, Frostburg, Maryland. Visit their official website and follow them on Twitter.

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What is It?

As I strolled through the antique and farm produce building at the fair a nice gentleman of our acquaintance presented me with an object, the likes of which I had never seen before.

Mind you, when I was seven or eight, Mom and Dad opened an antique store so we grew up surrounded by cool and mysterious items of all sorts. Let's just say you can't fool me with a potato masher or a single row hand corn planter very easily.

However, the best I could do with this thing was some kind of bundt cake pan or something like that.

Alas, I was wrong.

Let's see if you can do better than I did. Answer in the comments and at the end of the fair I will share the answer.

Best guess will get credit for same.....

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Do You Know...

I shamelessly stole this picture from someone...probably mom, herself.
 These two sure know how to have fun.

How long 65 years is? 

It is pretty darned long compared to most human doings. I don't have personal experience with the number as I am a year short of that particular age.....this is an important distinction by the way....but it seems like a pretty big deal, at least to me.

On this day in that long ago year......

Come on a My House, by Rosemary Clooney was number one on the Billboard charts.

Harry S. Truman was president.

Dragnet, I Love Lucy, Roy Rogers, Sky King, and the Red Skelton Hour were brand new TV shows, in black and white of course. Westerns were hot and adventure was high.

Iconic 1950 Chevys were barely broken in. Big, fat, rounded fenders were hot stuff and chrome was a boy's best friend.

Alice in Wonderland, (how perfectly fitting) African Queen, An American in Paris, and A Streetcar named Desire were big new movies.

In a small town in Upstate NY a young couple was getting married. Mom says that everyone told them that they were too young.....

Everyone was wrong I guess, because, all those years later, they are celebrating their 65th wedding anniversary today. In the interim they raised a family, started and operated several businesses, one of which is still in operation today, showed us all how much fun it is to be passionate about life and our interests and loved each other through thick and thin.

So Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad. We love you both.

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