Louisville has been down a coffee shop since Quills shut down on Kentucky Street back in July. The caffeine to human ratio is about to bounce back up though since Quills has let out word that they'll be reopening in a new location on Baxter Avenue.

The new location is at 930 Baxter Avenue next door to Flannigan's. No word on a firm opening date yet but about a month or so is the soft estimate.

In the hopes of turning Consuming Louisville into the all coffee, all the time channel let me tell you that Heine Brothers locations with drive thrus (Gardiner Lane, Shelbyville Road, Chenoweth Lane) are now opening at 5:30AM on weekdays and 6:30AM on Saturdays. I haven't been in need of coffee before 6AM in a while but I'm very glad to know that if I did Heine Brothers would be there to take care of me. 

I don't think I've ever mentioned this before but I love coffee. Oh, I kid, I kid. You know how deep and true my affection for coffee is. Drip coffee, cappuccinos, iced lattes, all of it. I. Love. It.

So it gives me great pleasure to tell you that Heine Brothers is trying to help you keep your cool this summer by offering a Coffee Break Happy Hour each Monday through Friday afternoon from1PM-3PM. There will be special deals on iced and frozen drinks. How very, very cool and Dude like of them.

My sources (heh, heh, I said I have sources) tell me that the Heine Brothers Coffee, complete with drive thru, at Gardiner Lane is now open!

More spots for good coffee around town is always good news but I confess to being particularly happy about this location because of its next-doorness. Meaning it's practically next door to Hawley-Cooke Borders, Krispy Kreme and the Watterson. Try any of these scenarios on for size:

1. Buy book, read it while enjoying yummy coffee
2. Buy yummy doughnut, enjoy it with yummy coffee (sorry but I am not in love with Kripy Kreme's coffee)
3. Buy one dozen original glazed doughnuts, buy vanilla cappuccino in drive thru, get on Watterson Expressway and then I65 South to surprise your grandparents with doughnuts for breakfast.

I guess that last one was just for me but you get the idea.

Heine Brothers
Gardiner Lane Shopping Center
3010 Bardstown Road (that's the address of the shopping center I don't have the exact number for Heine Brothers yet)
Louisville, KY 40205

When I first moved to Louisville many years ago Day’s was the first coffee shop I fell in love with. It was comfortable, with wooden booths great for stretching out and studying in. The music selections could have come straight from one of my college era mix CDs including R.E.M., the Indigo Girls, Patty Griffin and James Taylor. The frequently changed art on the walls made me feel grown up and Day’s made the first really great cappuccino I ever had. I thought it was the coolest place in town.

Not much has changed at Day’s even after all these years. The booths are still really comfortable, the music is still fantastic and could come from one of my current iPod playlists including the Indigo Girls (still), Cat Power, John Mayer, and a slew of other WFPK favorites. Great art is still featured and they still make a really excellent cappuccino. My standards for coffee shops really aren’t that high. Give me friendly people (or at least non-surly ones), comfortable tables, good music, good cappuccino, free wifi and I’m pleased. Well ok, perhaps my standards are a little high but Day’s meets my needs and almost always surpasses my expectations.

A few weeks ago I had dinner at Mayan Cafe before heading to Actors Theatre. The entire meal at Mayan Cafe was fantastic from start to finish and I'll discuss it in more detail later. But do you know what part of the meal I keep replaying in my mind? The after dinner cup of Jackson's Organic Coffee.

My love of coffee is of course no secret so it's not really that surprising that I'd be enamored with a particularly good cup. However this cup was more than particularly good, it was perfect for the moment. It was bold and complex but not even remotely bitter and overpowering. It was the perfect note to end dinner on.

Jackson's Organic Coffee is served at restaurants around town (well at least one restaurant, I'll update this when I find out about its availability at other restaurants) and it's available at several grocery stores. To get the full Jackson's Organic Coffee experience though you should head to their tiny drive-thru only shop on Lexington Road. Cans of beans, cups of coffee and espresso drinks are all available from 6AM-6PM weekdays.

Obviously you have to judge a coffee company on the coffee they produce and I do, but let me also say that getting coffee at Jackson's drive-thru is a quaint, enjoyable activity that you'd be hard pressed not to enjoy, even if they didn't make great coffee.

Jacksons Organic Coffee
1402 Payne Street
Louisville, KY 40206
(502) 569-0000

With five locations, and soon a sixth, Heine Brothers is the big fish in the independent coffee house pond in Louisville. Sometimes my natural inclination is to dislike things as they grow larger and larger and get away, at least in my opinion, from their small, independent roots. I'll confess that inclination has applied to Heine Bros. I've purposely avoided Heine Brothers at times in favor of local shops with one location instead of the "local chain."

But five stores in ten years isn't really that rapid a growth rate and with the exception of one very, very surly barista at my local Heine Brothers the quality of service and product is good across the board. OK one of the evening baristas at my local Heine Brothers makes drinks at a snail's pace but that's another minor complaint. Coming up with only two minor complaints after as much time as I've spent in Heine Brothers means that I don't really have much to complain about and so I'm quite grateful that I live in walking distance to a Heine Brothers.

The best compliment I can give Heine Brothers, as a small chain, is that I can count on consistency in their products. At large chains like Starbucks the quality and even the way a drink is made can vary from store to store and in independent, one location, coffee shops it can vary from employee to employee. At every Heine Brothers location I've visited and from every employee (even the surly one and the slow one) I've received a drink the quality has always been excellent and it has been made the same every single time. When I order a cappuccino at Heine Brothers I know it's not going to be the overly milky, hardly any foam latte-like concoction I've too often received at other coffee shops. No, it's going to be a proper cappuccino.
 
The second best compliment I can give Heine Brothers is to acknowledge that they are great places to work, have meetings or just hang out with a book. The environments at all the locations are just comfortable.

I'm sure the newest location, at Gardiner Lane, will have a comfortable atmosphere and vibe as well. Let's have a flashback moment though and think about how Heine Brothers in the Gardiner Lane shopping center is the closest we're ever going to get to the cafe in Hawley-Cooke way, way back in the day. Man, I still miss Hawley-Cooke.

I wasn't lying earlier when I said I don't have a favorite coffee shop in Louisville. It just might look that way after I tell you how much I love Quills Coffee & Books and how much I work and hang out there.

Quills Coffee & Books is a little oasis of comfort, warmth, really good coffee, and mostly excellent music selections. It is my favorite coffee shop for meetings or getting work done. The tables and chairs are comfortable, the flow of traffic and general noise level is low enough that you can think or have a conversation and the books and magazines all over the place offer inspiration or distraction, depending on what you need. The books are available for purchase or you can just read them while you're hanging out.

Wifi is free and reliable and they recently added an internet connected iMac for customer use. The vibe is laid back and relaxed. Lots of laptop users, lots of readers, mostly WFPK or indie rock and modern folk for the hipster set (Ryan Adams, My Morning Jacket, Iron & Wine, The Royal Tenenbaums soundtrack) on the sound system. The staff is friendly. They won't fawn over you but they won't try to upsell you or make you feel uncomfortable about ordering girly coffee drinks (*cough* sugar free vanilla cappuccino *cough*).

Granola with milk or yogurt, pastries and bagels are available for breakfast. Vegetarian sandwiches served on focaccia bread are available for lunch and dinner. Bottled waters, juices and a few sodas are available as well. Sadly though no Coke Zero.

One teensy, tiny, piddly little complaint about Quills that doesn't really matter to me but it might to you so I'll mention it. My beloved is much more of a tea drinker than a coffee drinker. She adores hanging out and reading/working at Quills but finds their tea selection lacking. They have a lovely Earl Grey but some of the others from their small selection of teas have been met with less than stellar reviews. Coffee and I are pair bonded so the tea selection doesn't really impact me but I've heard a rumor that there are other tea drinkers in Louisville besides my dearest so I thought it best to mention it.

Quills is situated smack dab on the dividing line between the Highlands and Germantown. This prime location makes it great central meeting place and a pick up your morning latte point for Highlands and Germantown commuters on their way downtown.

Quills Coffee & Books
1220 E Kentucky St
Louisville, KY