Ian Froeb

The new Starbucks in the Flying Saucer in Midtown.

When the Del Taco at 212 South Grand Boulevard in Midtown closed in the summer of 2011, a grassroots coalition of urban preservationists and locals who just like cool things, damn it, banded together to save the iconic midcentury-modern "flying saucer" building from demolition. The result of their efforts: The developer agreed to renovate the building for its new tenants, which would split the space: Starbucks and Chipotle Mexican Grill.

The Starbucks opened this morning.

See Also:

- "Del Taco Leaves St. Louis"
- "South Grand Del Taco: Scenes from the Closing"
- "Mayor Slay Has Del Taco Building's Back"
- "Del Taco Spaceship Will Now Serve Coffee & Burritos"

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via Facebook

Comet Coffee opened this morning at 5708 Oakland Avenue in the Highlands Plaza Two building in the city's Cheltenham neighborhood. The address was previously the home of Sabu's Coffee, which shuttered in April of this year.

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Kelly Hogan

Well, it certainly hasn't been a dull week for restaurant news in St. Louis. Here are a couple of additional items from the past day or so:

- Joe Bonwich of the Post-Dispatch, who has a pretty impeccable source when it comes to matters involving Five Guys Burgers and Fries, reports that the chain's very first area location at 1070 Town & Country Crossing in Town & Country closed Wednesday.

- Sauce reports that Matt Herren has sold Edwardsville, Illinois-based Goshen Coffee Company to real-estate investor Jay Beard. Herren will remain with the company and focus on the sourcing and roasting of the coffee.

Image via

The single-serve coffee maker: Incredible convenience, or threat to life, limb and pocketbook? If the news this week is any indication, the latter seems more likely than the former.

First, the New York Times looked at how much you're actually paying when you buy those pods that these single-serve coffee makers use.

...the Nespresso Arpeggio costs $5.70 for 10 espresso capsules, while the Folgers Black Silk blend for a K-Cup brewed-coffee machine is $10.69 for 12 pods. But that Nespresso capsule contains 5 grams of coffee, so it costs about $51 a pound. And the Folgers, with 8 grams per capsule, works out to more than $50 a pound.

As the Times article points out, all but the most exclusive varities of coffee will run you less than $20 a pound -- and in Gut Check's admittedly limited experience, the stuff that comes out of those pods is far closer to those giant cans of cheap coffee than $20-a-pound gourmet beans.

Is the convenience still worth the extra dollars per pound to you? What if we told you there was a risk of being scalded.

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Screenshot: www.starbucks.com

Oh, Starbucks, sometimes you make it too easy.

The java behemoth has introduced a new series of light-roast coffee blends called Blonde. Not really that interesting, unless you're one of the seven people left in America who hasn't formed an opinion about Starbucks coffee.

Except! From the main Starbucks gossip website -- yes, such a thing exists -- (via Gawker) comes reports of Starbucks managers forbidding employees, on the threat of written sanctions, from making Blonde jokes in front of customers.

A Blonde joke? Like: What do you call a Blonde roast standing on its head?

A dark roast!

Can you top that? Leave your best Blonde joke in the comments over the three-day weekend. Gut Check will judge the entries on Tuesday morning, and the winner will receive gift certificates to La Tejana Taqueria and Taqueria Durango.

Rules: To be eligible, you must leave a valid e-mail address (or Twitter handle or Facebook profile URL) in the comment-entry field. One guess per e-mail address. Employees of the restaurant in question and Riverfront Times are not eligible.

WINNER: After furious debate here at Gut Check International Headquarters, the winner is...Fendi Hotdogbun. We'll be in touch. An honorable mention to Bunny, whose joke didn't have anything to do with coffee, but made us laugh. Thanks to everyone who played!

Last fall, Ian reported on a new coffeehouse coming to south city, Sump Coffee. Gut Check followed up after the opening to get a closer look into the cafe's offerings.

Mabel Suen

Scott Carey, the man behind the plan at Sump Coffee, with a Kyoto drip brewer.

Scott Carey says he just might be obsessed with coffee; however, his fascination isn't that of the typical everyday caffeine junkie. At Sump Coffee (3700 South Jefferson Avenue; 917-412-5670), which opened last month in south city, he represents what's known as the "third-wave"coffee movement: artisanal beans, exacting brewing methods and an appreciation for the subtleties in each coffee experience.

Inspired by java mantras in New York City, where he resided for a dozen years working as a patent attorney, Carey sought to build a space in his hometown of St. Louis where coffee is treated like wine or a high-end single-origin chocolate, rather than merely as a caffeine-dosing mechanism. He strives to showcase different coffee varietals and origins through a number of brew methods.

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Ian Froeb

Sump Coffee in south city

​Sump Coffee will open at 3700 South Jefferson Avenue this Thursday, December 1. The south city coffee house's regular hours will be 8 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and closed on Sunday.

As Gut Check learned during a discussion with owner Scott Carey in October, Sump will use a Slayer espresso machine, a rare and very expensive item -- "a cult item," in Carey's words -- that lets a barista to extract the espresso at varying levels of pressure, allowing for a greater range of flavor profiles.

Ian Froeb

Sump Coffee in south city

​I noted last week that a new coffeehouse called Sump Coffee will be opening at 3700 South Jefferson Avenue in south city. Today, I had a chance to speak with owner Scott Carey, who returned to his hometown of St. Louis last year after spending time in both Berkeley, California, and New York City.

Carey sought a coffee experience in St. Louis similar to what he'd found in Berkeley and New York.

"What I discovered," he says, is that "every [coffee] place wants to be a brunch place."

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Yesterday, Eater reported that Starbucks has finally caved and is making a weaker, lighter brew. For "pussies."

Several of us at Gut Check International Headquarters have spent time as Starbucks baristas, and maybe that's why at this point you couldn't pay us to drink that swill. Give me a 'Bucks wet cappuccino, give me espresso, sure. But that "coffee" tastes like it was brewed from dark-roasted dirt and toilet water.

We'll bet you our Chemex that no one actually likes the stuff -- they just give in to middle-class peer pressure, thinking it's the good stuff, the strong stuff, and that they're a weakling if they don't like it. This is why there's inevitably a line for the condiment bar at Starbucks, as weary, sleepy-eyed sheep (yes, SHEEP!) fill their cups to the brim with Sugar in the Raw or two-and-a-half Splendas with an inch of half and half.

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Ian Froeb

Sump Coffee in south city

​- A new coffeehouse called Sump Coffee is slated to open at 3700 South Jefferson Avenue in the city's Marine Villa neighborhood.

Michael Carey and Marlene Akemi Yamaguchi registered Sump with the Missouri Secretary of State last October. Carey and Yamaguchi also own the building at 3700 South Jefferson, according to city property records.

Sump does have a Facebook page, though it doesn't have much information besides a projected (and apparently unmet) August opening date. There is a phone number, which I called. I'll let you know what I hear back.

- Dao Tien Vietnamese Bistro opened this weekend at 8600 Olive Boulevard in University City. Thanks to the commenters on our previous update for the heads up. For more on Dao Tien, check out this post from September.