May showers

Hello, strangers!

 Due to transitioning back into pulling shifts behind the coffee bar combined with an impending business trip to Dallas for the Head Cheese and me, BaristaGirl has been a bit lacking.  I do apologize.

We sure have been hustling around though! I hope you've been in lately to help us welcome the summer season. Everything is better in the summer, isn't it? I know most of us in this area are winter sports aficionados but come on. Last night I had sushi and a glass of wine with a girlfriend then went to split a Framboise down at city beach in Whitefish. We left the dock at 9pm and it was still light when I got home. Beat that.

 In downtown news, out of town business is picking up as well. Southern accents exclaim joy in not paying sales tax, or someone turns down a coffee card because they're, "just here on vacation." We love meeting the summer crowd. We especially love seeing a face from last summer or the summer before. Customers and baristas, we may not know much about one another, whether we have siblings or any allergies or what the other does for fun, but we have a mutual understanding of a shared experience we'd like to have again. The Colter experience. It's rad. I love sharing it. I say now that I love sharing it when I happen to be on this side of our upcoming trip where I'm going to have to share the Colter Experience with half of Dallas. We'll see what I have to say after that.

We had our Latte Art Competition on Sunday! It was fun! Changed it up a bit this year and offered some different options for spectators and competitors. A pour over bar, 5 Sparrows sampling table, affogatos, and general mingling with the crew. I look forward to continuing to tweak our approach and hope to have the house packed next year! I wanna nervously eye fire code capacity! From our in-house competition our veteran barista Brendarrrr took first place and runner up to her was Allison and the bronze went to Tazia. Out of house first place went to Montana Coffee Traders' lead barista, Matthew, second and third went to Hannah and Sarsten both from Ceres Bakery. So cool to see other area shops coming in to support the event. I have inklings of a combined effort and bigger draw in our futures. Personally, I thought the poem I wrote the night before and then posted as Colter's Facebook page status was gonna bring everybody in droves but apparently my poetry fell on deaf ears. Blind eyes? One of those.

I hope everyone has met and enjoys our newbies! We have a couple of seasonal baristas right now, those young and vibrant college youths who make us yearn to be back in those times of sleepless nights and whirring metabolisms. Yes, I'll have whipped cream with that! Anyway, Russ and Jessica are our new faces so come see them and try not to give them too hard of a time.

Also, starting this Friday, June 1st, we will be participating in First Friday! So come hear the musical stylings of Jarod Kearny and see the art of Alan Satterlee as you join the rest of Kalispell for a fun evening stroll around downtown! Keep on keepin on, y'all, I'll catch you on the flip side!