Each drink is made with freshly ground espresso beans, real milk, rich chocolate syrup, and fresh whipped cream. The beverages are fully customizable, available with whole or non-fat milk, with or without whipped cream, and with fewer or additional shots of espresso or pumps of chocolate syrup.

McDonald’s Mocha Mondays
Various Locations

Mondays, July 13 through August 3, 2009
7:00 am through 7:00 pm

So besides simply being the best at what you do, how do you market doughnuts in a city saturated (pun) with doughnut shops? With a little help from your friends. And–actually even more useful–your enemies. This morning, Twitter was all abuzz about a protest. Apparently just about every weekend since they’ve opened Psycho donuts sees a troop of protesters with placards protesting against their name.(They go home around 10) It offends them and all people who are clearly… well, how shall I say it? Maybe I better not. Let’s just call them sensitive. And really good marketers for Psycho Donuts.

Better yet, let’s roll the video. To the tune of “Crazy” by the fabulous Patsy Cline. Now WHAT would they have said to her?

Keep on top of the madness (did I really say that?) by following Psycho Donut’s Twitter stream, or just drop on by. The staff, BTW are super friendly and full of fun, if somewhat stunned by all the attention.

Roy's Station coffee shop

Roy’s Station, the much-awaited new coffee shop in Japantown, has been open since Monday. The new shop is located in a former filling station that has been in the owners’ family for three generations. They’ve restored the building meticulously, and documented their progress on Flickr over the past year.

I’ve stopped in twice now, and they still have a couple of things to work out, like how much water goes into an Americano (if they ask me, it’s about equal to the amount of espresso), but they seem to have things well under control for a place in their first week of business. Their coffee comes from Barefoot Coffee Roasters, and their tea from Teance, both local suppliers.

Roy’s Station is located at the corner of 5th and Jackson Streets, and is open 7 days a week, until 9 pm most of the week and until 10 pm Friday and Saturday.

Panera Bread will also invite customers to donate a dollar on January 28 to help support its Operation Dough-Nation Community Breadbox program. Participating bakery-cafes will join the celebration by matching customer donations made on that day. Donations support local programs that address community needs.

These participating locations are also Free Wi-Fi Hotspots:

503 Coleman Avenue
San Jose, 95110
(408) 299-0993

2199 Monterey Highway #80
San Jose, 95112
(408) 286-1755

501 East Hamilton Avenue
Campbell, 95008
(408) 370-7840

20807 Stevens Creek Boulevard
Cupertino, 95014
(408) 996-9131

43317 Christy Street
Fremont, 94538
(510) 440-7020

2650 Mowry Avenue
Fremont, 94538
(510) 742-1200

24133 Southland Drive
Hayward, 94545
(510) 732-0279

6865 Camino Arroyo
Gilroy, 95020
(408) 846-7430

For more information and other locations, check here.

Photo by Bert van Dijk, http://flickr.com/photos/zilpho/

This Saturday, pick up some free coffee and save the environment at the same time.

The Phi Mu chapter of Mu Phi Epsilon will be coordinating a free e-waste recycle day as a fundraiser for the organization, SJSU’s music fraternity.

Green Mouse Recycling is making this happen at its Santa Clara headquarters, and here’s a list of things you can bring to the event:

• Computers/Laptops/Servers
• Televisions/Monitors
• DVD/CD Players
• Fax Machines/Printers
• Wire/Cabling/Printed Circuit Boards
• Aluminum/Scrap Metal/Plastic Products
• Microwave Ovens

Details:

Saturday, December 13th
10:00 AM – 2:00 PM

292 Brokaw Road
Santa Clara, 95050

At Starbucks tell the barista you voted and receive a free tall (12 oz) cup of brewed coffee.

If there is a Krispy Kreme in your area, take your coffee with you to pick up your free star-shaped doughnut.

In the evening between 5:00 pm and 8:00 pm head on over to Ben & Jerry’s for a free scoop of ice cream.

Limit one per customer at all of the establishments mentioned (participating locations).

California Elections Code section 18521 (b) prohibits rewarding people for voting or not voting. The law was created to prevent any form of bribery for voting (or not voting) through free food, gifts, loans, or money. Thus, you need not prove you voted to receive the free item.

Starbucks locations: where isn’t there a Starbucks.

Ben & Jerry’s locations, check here.

Krispy Kreme locations:

Mountain View
2146 Leghorn Street, 94043
650-254-1231

Union City
32450 Dyer Street, 94587
510-471-6121

Pinole
1441 Fitzgerald Drive, 94564
510-262-6590

Daly City
1575 Sullivan Ave., 94015
650-985-5612

The downtown La Boulanger bakery and coffee shop has closed.

Just a couple of weeks after I wrote about the opening of Caffe Trieste, and the overall improvement in the availability of good coffee in downtown San Jose, two of the local coffee outlets seem to have closed. The first one I noticed was La Boulanger on Market St., near San Fernando. La Boulanger’s coffee wasn’t quite to the level of Peet’s or Trieste’s, but if you wanted a pastry or sandwich with your coffee, La Boulanger wasn’t a bad choice.

eMocha cafe is another casualty among downtown coffee shops.

Second, just today I saw a sign in the window of eMocha cafe, or maybe it was called Backdoor Espresso (they couldn’t seem to make that clear), indicating they’re “closed for now.” Hopefully that means they’re just cleaning up the decor, or rejigging the financing, and they’ll be back soon. For coffee made with obsessive attention to detail, eMocha, or maybe “Backdoor Espresso”, was the place downtown for a couple of months anyway.

On the positive side, I recently tried the relatively new Crema cafe on the Alameda, just a few blocks from downtown. The coffee was good, and the place is huge, with lots of indoor and outdoor tables. Stop in some time and check it out.

Sonia Giotta, daughter of the founder of Caffe Trieste, speaks at the grand opening of San Jose's new Caffe Trieste store, while the new store's owner and the Berkeley store owner look on.

In an event I’ve been anticipating for months, really since I had the best Americano ever at the Berkeley Caffe Trieste more than a year ago, Caffe Trieste’s new San Jose store held its grand opening today. I’d heard the San Jose store was “coming soon” early this year, and I had been checking the storefront regularly for signs of life. Apparently I didn’t check often enough, because they actually opened a couple of weeks ago, and I didn’t know about it until I saw the grand opening party announced in the Mercury this morning.

The North Beach Caffe Trieste house band was there, and it was planned for the head of the Caffe Trieste family, “Papa Gianni” Giotta to be on hand and sing his favorite operatic arias. Unfortunately, Papa Gianni fell ill at the last moment, and wasn’t able to attend. His daughter Sonia was there, along with Arturo (whose last name I missed), owner of the Berkeley store.

Tenor Christopher Bengochea performed an aria from Rigoletto.

Papa Gianni’s musical place was taken by Christopher Bengochea, a much-praised tenor, recently with Opera San Jose. Lory Stark, recently with San Jose Civic Light Opera, also performed a pair of arias.

The new store is centrally located on 1st Street, near San Carlos. They have plenty of seating, with a ground floor and upper balcony. About six staff behind the counter were struggling to keep up with the party crowd, but remained in control. The coffee was excellent, dark espresso, served in Italian style. A macchiato here is a single espresso, “marked” with a dollop of dry milk foam, not a syrupy flavored drink. If you like Peet’s, you’ll definitely want to stop in and try Caffe Trieste.

With the long-awaited arrival of Peet’s, eMocha Cafe across from City Hall, Bijan near Plaza Cesar Chavez, and now Caffe Trieste, downtown San Jose now has plenty of great coffee shops to choose from.

Starbucks Press Room: On April 22nd Starbucks will donate 5-cents to Conservation International for every purchase made that day with a Starbucks Card. Read about it here. If you bring your travel mug (save the paper) into the Starbucks on Los Gatos Blvd today and tomorrow you will receive a raffle ticket for a chance to win a fantastic Earth Day Basket. 14801 Los Gatos Blvd, Los Gatos, CA 95032 Between Samaritan Dr/Burton Rd and S Bascom Ave – Look around back for the underground parking garage

I met Nina Hautumm while waiting in the lobby of the San Jose Repertory Theatre. We were both there to see the World Premier of Sherman’s Way. I discovered that Nina herself was a moviemaker. Sharp Cookies is a short comedy (17 minutes) and is one of the winners of the ‘Vuze Audience Favorites.’ I told her that I would catch it on Sunday.

Reaching into her Cinequest Gift Bag, she came up with a 12oz bag of Peet’s Coffee. She asked, “Do you like coffee?” Nina doesn’t drink coffee is the reason she gave it to me.

Nina asked me, “Where are the shops?” She wanted to pick up a few things, maybe some new shoes. Without going into the whole where in the heck are the shops in San Jose debate, I directed her to Santana Row and Valley Fair.

Sharp Cookies

Vuze Audience Favorites