My mother-in-law lives in Wilmington, NC. Well, outside Wilmington in a suburb called Leland. It’s nothing but freshly expanding exurban sprawl with stroads and isolated subdivision neighborhoods spreading into formerly rural wetlands. In the roughly 15 years that she’s lived here I had mostly written off this town as not having much of an interesting coffee scene. But now as her time in the region draws to a close, I have coffee on my face.
Many years ago we stumbled upon Bespoke on Princess Street downtown. They served Counter Culture at the time (but switched to Black and White eventually) and provided the sort of coffee bar experience I enjoy. I think there were a couple of other places in town that weren’t Port City Java (regional Starbucks wannabe) but were more of a “place to get breakfast and coffee with it” than a place for fussy coffee dorks like me. I’m sure I’ve missed some things, but Bespoke was close enough to Leland that it was easy for us to pop over there when visiting my mother-in-law. So I just sort of grew comfortable with what we knew and stopped looking.
We’re almost done with a weekend in North Carolina for my mother-in-law’s birthday, and yesterday morning we went to Bespoke. Some time in the past year they changed ownership and, while they still have a full coffee bar, the concept has dramatically shifted. The interior is more of a dark cocktail bar, and the vibe on a Saturday morning is off. I still had good espresso and the pastries they have now are a markéd improvement (from a new-ish place called Pie Slayer that seems awesome), but the shift in atmosphere shocked me out of my stupor and got me looking again.
Well it seems like there’s plenty of good coffee to be had around town now, and I need only have looked. Years ago. There’s a place called Maven that roasts specialty coffee in town, but I ran out of time to check them out. And this morning I drove way out to Ogden (30 minutes from Leland) to Casa Blanca since they were open on Sunday, and they just flat-out rule. Solid espresso and cortado, and really nice pour over on my way out. I bought a bag of beans to take back up to Richmond.
I suppose the lesson for me—which I should have learned already when I was shocked out of complacency in Richmond this year!—is to always keep an eye out for what’s going on in a town’s coffee scene. I like to be a good regular customer at places I enjoy, but I still like checking out new joints when they arrive. I’m sure I’ll have to re-learn the same lesson in the future!