The Best Coffee in Town

For many years now, the Montauk Bakery Shoppe has charmingly boasted on a hand-lettered sign posted at the front door that its coffee is the best coffee in town.

Clearly, the effort and care the Steil family lavishes on their bakery’s coffee service is widely appreciated. To chew a bagel or a fresh, warm croissant and sip from a cup of delicious and fragrant coffee while people sit, feed the sparrows and people-watch on the wooden benches outside the bakery is a Montauk morning ritual.

A blind taste test was promulgated on July 30, 2009 among coffees from the Bake Shoppe, John’s Pancake House, Salivar’s, Ronnie’s Grocery and Deli, and the new “Just Coffee” trailer in the parking lot across from the IGA store.

The End’s Golden Coffee Spoon goes to the Montauk Bake Shoppe by a narrow but statistically significant margin. Their coffee is rich enough, vigorous enough, strong enough, not quite deep or smooth enough, but close, and its flavors are harmonious enough and the kick is strong enough. It’s not as noble a drink as you get at Hacienda de Esmerelda Geisha de Panama or Fazenda Santa Ines in Brazil, but what the hell, it’s still the best here at home 

A Dozen Urns of Fragrant Coffee Serve the Mighty Thirst At the Montauk Bake Shoppe 

The Silvery Coffee Spoon goes to a rank newcomer ~ “Just Coffee” ~ a trailer in which coffee is brewed each morning by a lovely and well-educated Oregonian coffee barista. (If there’s anything folks know oodles about in Oregon it’s coffee and pot.) Arrive at the trailer before 7 a.m. and any sized cup from 12 to 20 ounces is yours for just $1. Only the regular brew was tested; Just Coffee also offers espresso, latte, mocha, chai tea and whatever else a gourmet caffeine aficionado might desire. The fire engine red coffee trailer, custom-made in Alabama, is ultra-clean and super cute.

The new "Just Coffee" Trailer parks in the lot across from the IGA store

The Stainless Steel Coffee Spoon is bestowed with pleasure and gratitude upon John’s Pancake House, which brews a sturdy, reliable, vigorous, standard American-blend of java that is served in white porcelain mugs by strong and snappy waitresses.

Hundreds of Mugs of Coffee Each Day Are Brewed At This Small Station in John ‘s Pancake House

Runners-up are Ronnie’s Deli, which offers a decent commercial coffee in a half-dozen oddly flavored blends, and Salivar’s, where the coffee is drinkable when it’s not scorched.

 

 Coffee at Ronnie’s Deli Goes Good with Fresh-Fried Cinnamon Donuts

Drink a Beer and Watch the Fishing Boats at Salivar’s. Pass on the Coffee

Note: Savvy restaurateurs employ a coffee-based guestimate when they try to figure out how much a particular establishment earns in net profits after taxes. Simply determine the true number of cups of coffee sold annually and multiply by $1.