My sister called me Thursday evening saying “if you’re in Chicago, forget Intelligentsia, you need to visit Metropolis.” That was sort of exactly how she said it. It was the first I’d heard of Metropolis, but I got off the phone with her, looked them up, and gave them a ring.
The owner called me back and set it up. We didn’t know what to expect, but we squeezed the visit into our tight itinerary. It was an amazing visit.
See those stairs? That’s the entry. I loved this place. You’ll see those colors later on the packaging. And here’s a poster that greeted us:
We saw some equipment we hadn’t seen before, really cool stuff that added more flexibility to their operation than a lot of roasters have. We bonded over a straightforward approach to coffee. They pour pretty similar to us. And I almost saw a purpose for Groupon for the first time in my life. They have a mission of “getting great coffee to people who don’t otherwise buy great coffee” and Groupon was a way for them to introduce their product to people they don’t feel they would otherwise reach.
We have samples on their way and can’t wait to share them with you all.
But of course the most important thing was tasting the coffee. They’d set up a full cupping for us. This was really fun, and a treat.