Honestly, I'd just like a place that pulls a decent shot of espresso.

In roasting theory, we refer to first and second "crack" as the two major turn points during the roast process. Basically, the "cracks" are exothermic to endothermic heat reactions that occur when the heat outside the bean causes a reaction *within* the bean, causing the bean to pop or "crack." Basically the bean expands from the inside out. The first crack occurs about midway through the roast and the second occurs at what we define as the end, when the Maillard reaction is in full effect.

Blond roasting is quite a bit lighter than Full City, closer to Latin roast or Cinnamon (commercial coffees use this roast). The sugars haven't had a chance to develop yet, and the starches are in full effect. Full City roasts allow the sugars to develop and caramelize somewhat to maximize profile characteristics.

I think Nick and Starfire use a behemor too. They have pretty good luck with it, from what I can gather. Not a bad way to go, though I like a little more specific control over heat and time and shade of roast. It's definitely a step up from the pseudo-fluid-bed style that you get from an air popper. 

Michael Sivetz really was responsible for developing the "fluid bed" system that the air popper emulates.

If you're looking for whatelseisoutthere, I'd suggest having a look at the San Franciscan line that Coffee PER offers. We have an SF-1 sample roaster in our cupping room for profiling and approval roasting...although it's no longer made in San Francisco (now mfg'd in Fallon, NV), to my knowledge, it's still a good machine, and it gives you quite a bit more heat control than a fire and forget type system. Mechanically, it's a little more complex, but the payoff is well worth it.

I also love talking about my job. (No, really?!?) rather than hijack this thread any further, ringmeup @ zrabennettatgmaildotcom. I'm more than willing to discuss roaster theory.

Sadly, the failure rate for coffee shops is somewhere around 80-90 percent. I've been doing the coffee gig for the better part of 20 years, running shops, pulling shots, and burning beans. It's safe to say that I've seen pretty much all of it. It's tough. Really. 

Unfortunately (I think the Slate article kind of touched on this, too) there's no real money in owning a coffee shop. With a certain few exceptions, you're not going to make enough to retire on. You might make enough to pay the bills if your shop is successful enough, but the way the coffee prices are these days, it's damned near impossible to get to the point where you're eating steak and lobster every night.

We recently took a look at 12 shops that, over the course of something like 5 years, have switched from Alakef to another competitor for one reason or another, and of those 12, only 2 were still in business.

Think of it as a big pie. Now imagine all the little roasters and shops out there trying to get a piece of that pie. Fact is, particularly in the Cities where a good chunk of our business goes, the market is beyond saturated. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a coffee shop. Hell, even Muddy Waters had to go upscale and add in a wet bar (much to the chagrin of the sober folk who used to hang out there) to stay in business. My old boss, John Sherrell recently closed the Coffee Gallery after 20 years. He went out as the longest running coffee shop owner in the Cities. That dubious distinction now falls to the owner of the Ginkgo shops.

It's not a get rich industry. Ya gotta do it cause you love it. Irv Cissky (the crabby old fucker who owned the aforementioned Last Exit on Brooklyn in Seattle) never *really made a decent profit on the place in the nearly 30 years that the place was in operation. Seattle even lost the B&O a short time ago ... that place was an icon for a couple of decades.

That still doesn't discourage a few from trying it. Gary does good with Jitters. Jason's got Beaner's. They might not get rich off those two houses, but it seems like getting rich isn't their main focus. The new owners of Stop N Jo have done better by their drive-through biz than the two previous owners. These three shops have one thing in common for their style of success: community. They've gotten involved with their neighbors and taken an interest in what goes on outside their doors ... and it shows. By the Starbucks model, Jitters should have been a distant memory long ago ... but he keeps at it by adding value to his corner of the world. This is a common theme with pretty much every shop I've seen in the past nine years at the 'kef: shops that involve themselves in the livelihood of their community have a far better chance of sticking around ... which holds true for just about anyplace, be it a bar or a coffeeshop or a cafe.

Hopefully 7 West will be able to achieve that and succeed. An LGBT establishment is kind of a niche market on this side of the bridge. Maybe just niche enough.

Hopefully one of us will get the gumption to make another run at a bona fide coffee house too.

Ya never know.