Analog Coffee Named Best Coffee Shop

Coffee isn’t just coffee anymore. Now, it’s all about the brand, the merchandise, the location, the story, but it has always been, and always will be, about the taste. Lucky for you, Analog Coffee checks off all of these boxes. Learn more about the history and creation of Analog Coffee below.

Coffee has run in the Prefontaine family since 1974, when the father Cam first started a wholesale coffee company out of his home. His three sons grew up helping him with sales and watching him roast his very own coffee. The parents produced the coffee and the sons started selling all the commercial coffee equipment, making them the whole package to share their love of coffee with the world. Eventually after many years in the industry, the family decided that it was finally time to open their own shop.

With seven current locations in Calgary and one soon to be available in the University District, Analog Coffee first started out in the Calgary Farmers’ Market in 2011. As business boomed almost immediately, the company bought their dream location that we all know and love today on 17th Avenue. As the coffee’s popularity grew and more and more people fell in love with the taste, the business couldn’t help but to expand their reach and provide more Calgarians with their delicious brews.

Learn more about the history of the company and see which trendy Analog Coffee location is closest to you.

To see the original article, and other winners check out The Best of Calgary website.

Photo captured by Neil Zeller

Artisan coffee goes to suburbs as Analog Coffee opens in Westman Village

Coffee purveyors in south Calgary can rejoice as on Monday, Feb. 18, Analog Coffee (Analog) officially opens its doors at Westman Village. This is the sixth location for the Calgary-based coffee roaster. This storefront is unique to other Analog locations as it will be home to its first in-house bakery, top-of-the-line equipment - which will be the first-of-its-kind in Western Canada - and a liquor license so Westman Village residents and neighbours can enjoy an after work or weekend drink in Analog’s hip, trendy café.

Analog Coffee’s sixth storefront in Calgary will feature an in-house bakery, a liquor license and top-of-the-line equipment

This new location will harmonize downtown-city vibes with the comforts of the suburbs, while providing craft coffee that is anything but ordinary. It joins the likes of other more urban retailers such as Diner Deluxe, 5 Vines Wine, Craft Beer and Spirits and Chopped Leaf as part of the local, gourmet offerings at Westman Village, Jayman BUILT’s one-of-a-kind lakeside community in Mahogany.

Why did you decide to build in the suburbs of Calgary?

Russ Prefontaine, president and co-owner, The Fratello Group, is passionate about providing coffee connoisseurs in the south with coffee as fuel for a busy day, or an escape from it.

“Being a native Calgarian myself, my team takes great pride in providing a variety of communities a little sense of home and a place to come together creating a fulsome experience for our customers,” says Prefontaine. “This new café is taking us in a direction where we can do more in-house, which enables us to control the quality of products we are executing. We are driven by the need to create an epic, unmatched experience for our customers and this new model of Analog allows us to do just that.”

This location will feature a unique food program that includes soups, salads, cheese boards and other treats - which is new to Analog. The liquor license will enable it to offer a small selection of wine by the glass and local craft beer. However, coffee is still a priority at this location as it will have the highest tech coffee gear in Western Canada: The Slayer Steam Espresso Machine and The Mythos 2 Gravimetric Grinders and Marcos SP9 single-serve brewers.

The vision behind Westman Village is underpinned by the values of Jayman’s founder, Al Westman, weaving convenience, diversity and accessibility into an all-inclusive community. Westman Village is the most recent undertaking by industry-leading, Calgary-based home builder, Jayman BUILT. The community is the first of its kind in Calgary, with buying and leasing options for residents of all ages, including an active adult living, retirement living and starter to estate component. Retail and commercial partners are set to open from early 2019 onward.

“We want Westman Village to be a hub for our residents. We have strategically chosen boutique retailers, like Analog, to bring our residents unique and local offerings,” says Jay Westman, chairman and CEO, Jayman BUILT. “With the opening of Analog, we are bringing an urban, artisan experience to our residents right outside their front door.”

For more information on Westman Village and its amenities and service offerings, please visit http://westmanvillage.com/

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About Jayman BUILT

For 38 years, Jayman BUILT has continually redefined the way new homes are built, bought and, most importantly, lived in. Participating in community developments in Calgary, Airdrie, Cochrane, Edmonton and Sherwood Park, Jayman BUILT is the largest homebuilder in Alberta. For more information, visit www.jayman.com

About Westman Village

Westman Village embodies the harmonization of the values of Jayman's Founder, Al Westman, by thoughtfully weaving convenience, diversity and accessibility into an all-inclusive suburban community concept.

About Analog Coffee

Analog Coffee is part of the Fratello Group who have been roasting coffee in Calgary since 1985, and owned by local brother’s Russ and Chris Prefontaine. Analog is well known on the local Calgary coffee scene, focusing on single estate, direct trade coffees that are acquired from grower partners around the world.

Media inquiries

Lisa Libin

Brookline Public Relations

403-538-5641 ext. 104

Colombia Las Rosas Coffee Coop

Las Rosas Women's Cooperative

Recently, our President Russ Prefontaine had the opportunity to visit La Plata, located in Huila Colombia. He went to visit Las Rosas (formerly Las Marias) the women’s cooperative that we have been working with for some time.

Las Rosas was founded in September 2010 by women in the region, overwhelmed by the lack of credit available to them to use as working capital for their farms. This lack of critical credit combined with traditional household roles and duties, was weakening their families. So, they sought to change it

The major objectives are:

Gender equality and the importance of an inclusive family
Revolving credit to finance their farms
Economic education
Overall cup quality and farming processes
Overall infrastructure improvements to their homes and coffee process equipment.

Las Rosas Family Training MeetingFratello started working with this cooperative in 2014. We are the majority supporter in this project. We have committed to continue working with them and are working on further incentives to improve cup quality and reward the top producers.

While there, Russ joined a family training day in the village of Monserrate located in La Plata. This lesson focused on the value and roles of women and the importance of gender equality. 40 members of Las Rosas were involved and that was inclusive of their entire family. At the end, they shared stories of how this program has literally changed their lives and transformed their village.

Nelly, the president of this cooperative just received her high school diploma at the age of 50 through this program!

Today, Fratello and Analog Coffee purchase 30% of their total production, however could reach 50% by the end of this year.

We take great pride and joy in knowing that we are making strategic decisions like this to improve the areas we are working in.

Our goal is to do a similar program in Brazil, starting in 2019.

At the forefront of bringing the café culture to Calgary

Russ Prefontaine of the Fratello Group talks about why quality, skill and hospitality are at the core of his family's coffee business

Calgary’s Business: How and when did Fratello start?

Prefontaine: Our family’s history in coffee dates back to 1974, when our dad, Cam Prefontaine, first started a wholesale coffee company, which was operated out of our garage and basement. Our parents involved all three of us brothers (Russ, Chris and Jason) in the family business from the start, earning our allowance by helping dad service old coffee brewers.

In 1985, our dad started roasting his own coffee. He was passionate from the start, experimenting and learning how to source and roast better coffee, as well as helping his wholesale customers make better coffee.

He was one of the first coffee professionals in Calgary to focus on higher-quality beans, and became a pioneer in what we now know as the modern café culture in Calgary.

This planted the seeds that would eventually grow into a family of brands known for their focus on premium quality: Fratello Coffee Roasters, Corbeaux Bakery and Analog Coffee itself. These companies, and their predecessors, played a huge part in bringing café culture to life in Calgary and Western Canada.

All three of us brothers started selling commercial espresso machines in 1991, helping local entrepreneurs start their own shops. We supplied all the equipment and training, and our parents’ company supplied the coffee. We bought the roasting company from our parents in 1997 and changed the name to Fratello Coffee (fratello means brother in Italian).

Over the years, we’ve never stopped learning, expanding our knowledge of coffee, working to keep up with the rapidly-changing trends in the industry. We started travelling to the countries and farms where our coffee was grown in search of the best coffee, and to meet the farmers and families who produced the raw product.

We learned from Dad’s increasingly obsessive attention to detail, not just in the way he focused on roasting great coffee but in how he presented it. For Dad, hospitality and community became critically important. He was making the argument – with every new cup poured — that coffee could be something special. Everything had to be as good as possible. Or why bother doing it at all?

This mindset would play a key part in how we eventually built the Analog business. Over the years, we have led, pioneered and challenged a vast variety of innovative coffee and coffee-related businesses, which include the creation of Slayer Espresso machines with our brother Jason in 2007. We envisioned inventing and creating a specialized machine unlike anything else on the market. The ambitious decision to create a machine from scratch that would dramatically expand brewing possibilities was born because we knew there was specific demand from coffee professionals for a machine that could ‘flavour profile’ the unique varietals of coffee that were being produced.

Our family also owned a bottling facility for coffee chai/syrups/smoothies.

We hope you’ll quickly see how completely and totally obsessed we are with every decision that goes into our coffee and its products. It’s simple: ‘good enough’ is never good enough.

As these things often go, it was the original lessons from Dad – the ones about quality and hospitality – that would bring all the promise of our businesses, finally, into reality. We threw ourselves full-bore into expanding our knowledge of growing and roasting coffee. We travelled around the world where we found kindred spirits in farmers who cared as much about coffee as we did.

As business thrived, we started thinking more and more about how best to present the coffees we were working so hard to perfect. This was the moment we decided it was time to create a line of cafés, each reflecting everything we believed a coffeehouse could be if done right. We would take everything we had learned and become so obsessed over, and share it with our community.

CB: Can you give me a scope of your business today and what you do?

Prefontaine: We continue to focus on what we grew up doing. Sourcing and roasting exceptionally good coffee and using our expertise to help other like-minded companies achieve their goals. Our core business is wholesale roasting and now with Corbeaux Bakery, we are also offering a wholesale food solution.

This ambitious project has had a very steep learning curve. But we press on, continuing to put as much effort and intention into our food as we do our coffee. In fact, our team of chefs and master bakers make virtually everything from scratch.

Our natural sourdough bread is fermented 48 hours before baking, our pastries are made from scratch with all-natural premium ingredients, we laminate our croissant dough by hand using real butter, we slow roast our own meat, and even make our own all-natural yogurt, which is a 24-hour process. We don’t add preservatives, we only use natural ingredients.

Simply put, we don’t cut corners. This has started to get a lot of attention because it’s so unique.

Our newest customer, Calgary Co-op, recognized this passion and has begun offering our bread program in a few of their locations. They realize that this was a segment that wasn’t being offered or served in their stores, or most of their competitors’ stores. We’re excited to say that we will be expanding to most of their Calgary stores over the next few months.

Aside from working with our wholesale customers across Western Canada, we spend a tremendous amount of time with our Analog Coffee team fine-tuning our operations. Currently, our focus is on culture and our customer experience. We believe we’re all hosts, and want our Analog team members to feel the same way when greeting and serving our guests.

CB: What are your growth plans for the company in the near future?

Prefontaine: We definitely have some fun and exciting plans for growth in the next five years. Much of these plans are to expand our roasting capacity and distribution in order to make it easier for people to find and enjoy our products. This will primarily be based on where we have our brick and mortar Analog Coffee locations, which is also the perfect place to enjoy our Corbeaux Bakery food products.

One challenge for us is we don’t do anything without going all the way. This does make it challenging when looking to expand outside of Calgary, as there are so many details to systemize to ensure a successful launch. How do we bring this same attention to detail, quality and care to another city with certainty that those guests will experience everything we do in Calgary?

We have been asking this question for a few years now and we believe we are on the verge of something great.

CB: Why have you been able to be successful in a market that seems to be saturated with coffee players and big ones such as Starbucks?

Prefontaine: We’ve been successful in this competitive marketplace because I believe our customers can see we authentically love what we’re doing. Analog is the realization of everything our family has been building for over 40 years. Every detail of the guest experience is considered, calculated and very intentional, from the décor, vibe and food, to the coffee itself. It’s decades of passion made tangible.

We had thought about starting our own café since the 1990s. And in 2011, we couldn’t resist the temptation any longer and opened the first Analog Coffee in the Calgary Farmers’ Market. It exceeded our own expectations. In 2012, our dream location came available for our second shop on Calgary’s 17th Avenue, right in the heart of the city’s Beltline community. More stores followed.

Analog gives us a place where we can carefully craft our brilliant single-origin coffees for guests from across all walks of life.

Analog allows us to practise what we have been preaching with a direct voice to the community. At Analog, average is completely unacceptable. We’re always in search of the finest coffees for our customers and our community. We’re driven by the need to deliver epic, unmatched coffee experiences to our customers. Every day. In every way.

We want to share our coffee with everyone from the longtime aficionado to the newcomer who just wants something a little (or a lot) better to drink. It’s not about attitude or elitism. It’s about how everyone who orders our subscriptions deserves the best coffee we can find.

We know good coffee is everywhere. But great coffee is surprisingly rare – whether you’re drinking it as fuel for your busy day or an escape from it. So, we’re here for those who want a life less ordinary. If only for the time it takes to finish a cup of our Analog Coffee.

CB: Why has coffee taken off in recent years as a burgeoning consumer trend?

Prefontaine: We have been watching coffee grow in popularity since we first started roasting in 1985. I remember the day that Starbucks announced they were coming to Calgary. We were excited. We knew that they would bring an enormous awareness to the public on what specialty coffee is, and we knew that to compete against someone like them, that you would have to raise the bar on everything we did.

Today, truly exceptional coffee isn’t as hard to find as it used to be in most cities. It’s now expected that if you are opening a café, or serving coffee in a restaurant or hotel, that the coffee you’re serving has been given attention. Even Swoop Airlines is offering our coffee on board because they wanted to serve their guests something special.

All the fancy grinding and brewing equipment in the world won’t make a difference if we don’t first find perfectly produced coffee. That’s why our producers harvest by hand-picking. That way only perfectly ripe cherries are selected while overripe and green cherries are sorted out. Our growers spend day after day moving from tree to tree, harvesting only the best cherries. This ensures that the quality of our coffee is not hindered by any shortcuts.

Our growers utilize a variety of different processing techniques from honey processing to fully-washed and beyond – all depending on what they believe will coax the best flavour from the varietal. By the time the coffee leaves the farm on its journey to our roasterie in Calgary, hundreds of people will have contributed to its creation.

This philosophy is the same with many coffee roasters these days and this started the third wave of the coffee movement. When we roast our beans we want to create a profile that best expresses the varietal and the region where it was grown. That’s both an art and a science. We roast every offering with a custom approach, all with the goal of telling a story in every cup.

Our roasters are always on the leading edge of their trade. They’re highly skilled at managing the variables of a roast, producing beans with vibrant aromas and creating the best possible flavour for each coffee.

Skilled baristas are the last important link in this movement. They should be well-trained experts in the art of brewing. They’re working with state-of-the-art machinery and a fine eye to detail. In fact, when one of our Analog baristas is standing behind the counter brewing your coffee, you should feel confident that they’re making sure this final step is done with all the care, attention and intention shown by each and every person who has cared for the coffee bean since it was planted.

That’s how you know that when you’re handed a cup of Analog Coffee, you’re tasting some of the best coffee in the world. Every time.

– Mario Toneguzzi

Respected business writer Mario Toneguzzi is a veteran Calgary-based journalist who worked for 35 years for the Calgary Herald in various capacities, including 12 years as a senior business writer.

https://calgarysbusiness.ca/business/fratello-coffee-culture-calgary/

Analog Coffee Announces its 3rd Location in South Calgary

Fratello Coffee Roasters is excited to announce a fall 2015 opening for a brand new Analog Coffee location in Southcentre Mall. Fratello recently celebrated its 30^th anniversary of roasting coffee in the Calgary community and this new Analog Coffee location will join the current location in the Calgary Farmers Market and the flagship location on 17^th Avenue SW.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Fratello Coffee opens its 3^rd location in South Calgary

Brothers Russ and Chris Prefontaine, co-owners of Fratello Coffee Roasters, have a vision to create spaces for Calgarians to experience community and quality. These spaces exist within the Analog Coffee locations and at Corbeaux Bakehouse, a new concept bakehouse inspired by communal eateries in Europe and other cosmopolitan locales.

The Southcentre Mall coffee house will bring what people love at the 17th Avenue and the Farmers Market locations, including exceptional beverages handmade by trained baristas, community atmosphere and quality service. The menu will additionally offer a broad food service with fresh ingredients from Corbeaux Bakehouse.

This new Analog Coffee location will expand the craftsman coffee experience from existing primarily in the downtown core and surrounding areas to the south quadrant of the City. It will provide shoppers and local residents with an opportunity to retreat and enjoy a meticulously-prepared beverage; an opportunity to take a moment and taste a cup of coffee, not just drink it.

"Southcentre is proud to welcome Analog, a great local business which complements our growing family of retailers and services", says Shawn Hanson, General Manager, Southcentre Mall. "Our shoppers appreciate quality and Analog is the perfect addition to enhance the guest experience."

The fall 2015 opening of Analog Coffee in Southcentre Mall is perfectly timed for shoppers and the south Calgary community to enjoy for this year’s holiday shopping season.

Social Media and Marketing for Fratello Coffee Roasters

Analog Coffee - Past, Present and Future

Owners, Russ and Chris Prefontaine.

Fratello Coffee is excited to announce the launch of the newest Analog Coffee opening in Southcentre Mall in Fall of 2015. This location will bring what people love about the urban location to the south along with broad food service with fresh ingredients from Corbeaux Bakehouse. This will mark the third Analog location in Calgary and Owner, Russ Prefontaine shares more about the past, present and future Analog Coffee in our interview below.

How long has Fratello been around in Calgary? Describe the journey of the company.

Our family has been roasting coffee in Calgary for 2 generations now, 30 years. For all those years we’ve worked closely with our wholesale café customers to educate them about what espresso-based beverages are all about and help them to create excellent café experiences. But what better way to show the world our vision for what a world-class café should be than to open one ourselves? Our cafés were created to give Fratello Coffee Roasters a direct voice to those who matters most: the people who drink and enjoy our coffee every day. We like to think of Analog as our stage; on which we have the opportunity to showcase all of our elite coffees. The intricacies of which are highlighted by careful preparation, using only the worlds best brewing equipment and techniques by professional baristas who share our passion for exceptional coffees with dynamic and unique flavour profiles. We’ve been teaching wholesale clients and trying to convince them of our idea of what a proper café can be — now we are able to showcase our products ourselves, controlling every aspect of the finished product from choosing the beans to texturing the perfect milk for a traditional cappuccino. We have a long history and a fun story, its great to finally share it. https://www.fratellocoffee.com/our-story/about-us/

When did the first Analog open its first location and why did Fratello go in this direction?

The idea of having our own café isn’t new. We’ve been talking about this concept for over 15 years, dating back to when we first purchased the roasting company from our parents in 1997. In March of 2011 we took the first step towards realizing this dream by opening Fratello’s Analog Coffee in the Calgary Farmers’ Market. In late 2012 we opened our flagship location, the stand-alone Analog location at 740-17th Ave SW. We’ve always believed that a coffee house should be much more than just a place to get your caffeine fix and with Analog, we believe we’ve created the perfect spot to retreat and enjoy a meticulously-prepared beverage.

These lofty goals has been both the most rewarding and taxing. To achieve this every single day requires you to be surrounded by like minded people who authentically want those same goals. You can’t fake it. For us, our success has come from the team of people that have joined us at our roastery and cafes. This team is truly behind the idea of delighting our guests. The biggest challenge at first was finding these people, but now that we are together, together we attract more people who are passionate about what we do, and that is very rewarding. The success of Analog Coffee is only because of our team.

What is the story behind the 17th Ave location? When did you take it over and what did it used to be?

This has literally been our “dream” location in Calgary ever since we had our offices down the roast on 17th ave and 9th street. At that time we weren’t doing any roasting, it was still our parents company. Back then we were called Espuccino Imports and were only focused on importing specialty restaurant equipment, like espresso machines. Training and service was our specialty. In those days we would look at the old Buy Right Grocery Store which is now Analog Coffee, and talk about how this location would be ideal for a local coffee shop. It took over 50 years for the owners of this location to finally retire, but when they did, we were ready to take it over. We wanted to keep some of the history of that old grocery store alive, so we installed their old outdoor signage inside our store.

How have you seen 17th ave as a whole evolve since you opened the doors?

At Analog you will experience craftsman-like drink preparation on our Slayer espresso machines, single origin coffee and single estate tea offerings, delicious snacks and food, and a place where you can engage with us and learn more about the coffee we offer and how we make it. We want to show our passion and elevate your drink every day. When people get a coffee at Analog, we want them to have a true experience in every sense of the word. We want them to taste the coffee….we don’t want them to just drink the coffee. We want to help educate and assist our clients, not preach to them. We want them to be comfortable and relaxed as soon as they approach us and enter our cafes. We want to be hosts. This has always been the goal at both our locations and this hasn’t and won’t change. What has changed is our food offering. Food was the most frustrating part of Analog. Trying to find bakeries that wanted to actually WORK with us, not just give us “off the shelf offerings”. In order to take control of every aspect of our cafe, we needed to create our own food. This is when Corbeaux Bakehouse was born, and the concept continued to grow to where it is today. Now we are not only creating our own sandwiches, but are a full from scratch Bakery and Patisserie. We see the future of high quality, “3rd wave cafes”, and that future is food. You can’t just offer exceptional coffee and customer service, you need to have a complete offering.

Analog is opening its 3rd location in the South of Calgary. How will this be different from its other locations?

At South Centre you will see and experience everything people love at 17th Ave and the Farmers Market. Exceptional beverages hand made by professional baristas. What you will also notice is a much broader and complete food offering. We will even be baking many products fresh each day in store. All of the foods and products will be produced by Corbeaux Bakehouse specifically for our needs. It will be a great experience for shoppers who are looking for a break from shopping, a place to sit with friends, a “office” space for meetings and a little taste of down town. This really will be something different for a shopping mall environment.

What is next for Analog? Will we see more location in the city or even expand across the country?

My brother and I are always dreaming about new business opportunities and concepts, and we will continue to travel abroad seeking inspiration. Lets just say, we aren’t done yet.

Roasting Coffee | The Perfect Coffee Bean

Coffee can seem like a simple thing but there is so much work, knowledge and skill that goes into growing, picking and roasting the perfect bean. As the coffee culture emerges, many are learning and tasting the difference between what really goes into preparing your cup. We interviewed Fratello's Head Roaster, to learn more about roasting coffee, and learn a bit more about the roasting process and how you can pick the coffee that is right for you.

Can you explain the difference between light and dark roast?

The simplest explanation is a dark roast is taken to a higher temperature than a light roast forcing the coffee to go through more chemical changes and darkening the colour of the bean.

What makes for the perfect bean?

Perfection is always strived for and never achieved. The best answer I can give but when looking for high quality beans you are looking at varietal of the bean, soil type, elevation, harvesting methods and processing methods. Typically you are looking for a higher elevation bean because it gives the coffee cherry time to develop properly in a slightly lower temperature than coffee grown at low elevations which get rushed due to the higher temperatures.

When is the best time to use your coffee beans?

It is dependant what you are using them for, if you are using them for drip coffee, the fresher the better. I would buy enough for a week at a time to ensure you always have great coffee at home. For espresso I would recommend 7-14 days after the roast date for use, this lets the coffee de-gas properly and will pull a much nicer shot under compacted pressure.

Can you walk us through the process of roasting coffee at Fratello?

When coffee comes in to Fratello it has already been sampled at least once to make sure it meets our standards so once it gets in the door it has to be profiled. Each coffee is put through many profile roasts changing the amount of heat used as key times in the roast until we have a roast we are happy with how it performs, some times this can take months of profile roasting and some times it is achieved in the first day. Once we have it profiled it goes into production. A production roast starts by loading the green coffee into the hoppers above the roasters, once the roaster has achieved the temperature desired we release the green beans into the drum of the roaster, it is the job of our roasters to make sure the profile that was decided on during the profiling stage is achieved on a consistent basis, they do this by adjusting the amount of heat depending on how the coffee is reacting that day and making sure the timing on everything is acceptable, coffee roasting is aided by computer software to track the curve but the roaster should always rely on the sight, smell and sounds the coffee is making as it roasts.

When choosing beans for our home use, what should we look for?

Personal preference is huge here, I would recommend going to your local barista and seeing what they suggest based off of what you have previously enjoyed. There is really no wrong answer here some people prefer a very light floral coffee, while others enjoy the heavy bold flavours of a dark coffee. Find something you like and look for other coffee's that are similar. But once again make sure its fresh. Life is to short for stale coffee.

NEWS RELEASE - Community Bakehouse announced for landmark Calgary location

Community Bakehouse announced for landmark Calgary location

Corbeaux Bakehouse to open this September under award-winning US chef Keith Luce

Calgary, AB, May 2, 2014… Ending at least part of the speculation about what will take over the landmark Melrose Cafe & Bar space, the Calgary brothers behind Fratello Coffee Roasters and Analog Cafes, Chris and Russ Prefontaine, announced today their newest venture will open this September in the former restaurant and patio space.

More than just a bakery, Corbeaux Bakehouse will offer exceptional breads, world-class pastries and a rotating menu inspired by only the finest ingredients, with everything crafted in-house. The culinary team will be led by award winning and seasoned chef Keith Luce who eagerly accepted the Prefontaine’s offer to move to Canada with his family to be part of Calgary’s culinary community.

Luce’s resume and career accolades are impressive to say the least. He’s been recognized by the prestigious James Beard Foundation as a Rising Star Chef Winner and Best New Restaurant Nominee, Food & Wine magazine has recognized him as Best Chef and he was even appointed to the United States Culinary Diplomatic Corps to name only but a few of his accomplishments. However, it was his approachable charm and excitement about doing something new and noteworthy in Calgary that made Russ and Chris realize instantly they’d found their man.

“Keith’s as seasoned as they come but what really excited us most was his excitement about Calgary and how aligned he was with our vision for this special place,” said Chris Prefontaine.

Leaders in Western Canada’s third wave coffee movement, the Prefontaines have long been supporters of direct trade, working closely with coffee farmers to know and understand where their product comes from.

Now they plan to take what they’ve learned and loved about coffee, and with Luce and his team’s help, apply that to bread and all the great things that go along with it. Small-production ancient grains. Local ingredients. A fierce emphasis on freshness. And knowing who makes your bread and food. Knowing their name, their story and why they believe in what they do.

“It’s an Old World approach, but with a fresh new energy,” said Luce. “The Corbeaux experience will begin with respect for ingredients and technique, but ultimately it’s about going back to the basics and creating a community bakehouse that brings people together in the heart of the City,” he said.

Additional details on the team and offering will be shared over the coming months.

About Corbeaux Bakehouse:

Opening in September 2014, the completely redesigned space will be a gathering spot for Calgary’s bread-loving community. A welcoming place to fuel up in the mornings. An opportunity to reconnect at lunch. And a warm place to linger with friends over a meal and a glass of wine on the way home. Stay connected at www.corbeaux.com, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/corbeauxbakehouse or on Twitter and Instagram @corbeauxbakehouse.

Nicaraguan Coffee | Eleane Miersch

Continual improvement is something every farmer we work with strives for but few have the level of commitment that Eleane Mierisch does. This is Fratello Coffee's 5th year working with the Miersch family and have written about them a lot. We wanted to focus on Eleane in this post as she is a big reason for the consistent quality coffee coming from their farms and why we love Nicaraguan Coffee.

Eleane is the second oldest child of Erwin Mierisch Sr. who was one of the early leaders in specialty coffee in Nicaragua. Eleane gave up a nursing career to take care of her ailing mother, that was over 6 years ago and though her mother passed she has stayed to help with the family business.

She oversees the family farms in Nicaragua but her real passion is the dry mill in Matagalpa. She told us that “We are still quite a small dry mill so the focus has to be on quality.” And that focus on quality really shines through in the cup.

Her favorite job in the dry mill is the quality control, and to maintain that she repeatedly cups the lots that are processed there. The other highlights of her job include experimenting with the multiple different drying techniques and most importantly maintaining and building the team of people that work at the dry mill. Her goal is that everyone enjoys working there and finds it rewarding, because if the workers are enjoying their jobs it is much easier to keep the high qualities of products coming out that her customers have come to expect.

One of the ways she is improving is by putting up African Raised beds as an alternative way to dry the coffee, before this the coffee was dried on a concrete patio. The Raised bed is a drying style that many believe increase the pleasant acidities in coffee. Making them stand out even more from the majority of coffee coming from Nicaragua.

The biggest way that she is improving is by communicating with her clients and finding out what types of coffees and processing methods they prefer what drying method they are most interested in. In this way she is learning what other methods her clients have seen from other countries on how to process so she can not only tailor the best coffee to each of her clients, but it also gives her more ideas on how to experiment and make the coffee better for everyone.

The Vanguard Review - Analog Coffee 17th Ave

Calgary has become an amazing coffee city. It’s quite rare for a city to have one great coffee roaster, let alone three. Fortunately the city has been quick to embrace this coffee movement. I’m confident to say Calgary coffee roasters rival that of Blue Bottle/San Francisco, Stumptown/Portland, or Intelligentsia/Chicago.

Analog is the café arm of what seems is becoming the Fratello Coffee Roasters ‘empire’. Owned by three brothers, Fratello sources, roasts, and now brews its coffee. Analog struck gold with its location on the corner of 17th avenue and 7th street SW. Quite fortunately this is also less a mere block from my house.

In the few months the café has been open it has developed a bit of a reputation as a hipster hangout. Needless to say the crowd tends to be young, hip, and gorgeous. In my mind this is never a bad thing.

While I consider myself a latte guy, to me the quintessential coffee at Analog is the single cup pour over. I’m consistently blown away by the flavour notes of the roasts. It’s impossible to get such flavour notes in a latte.

In addition to great coffee, Analog sources a great selection of pastries and delicious sandwiches from Sidewalk Citizen Bakery. This makes it a great spot to do some work and grab some lunch. Given the location, it is always a great spot to sit at the window bar or the patio and people watch.

One can discuss who makes the best coffee in Calgary. Ultimately this is dependant on the roast, the barista, and the individual’s taste. Analog is a great option in a great location with less children than the average Calgary café.

To read this review from the original source go to: The Vanguard Review

Calgary Coffee Scene is Booming

It’s mid-week, mid-morning. A dozen or so customers are drinking espressos and lattes in Fratello’s Analog Cafe on 17th Avenue S.W. It’s decently busy, at least by the standards of many local third-wave coffee shops — a movement to promote high-quality, artisanal coffee, of which Fratello’s is an adherent. The mixture of conversation and coffee grinding is nearly constant. The Calgary Coffee Scene is just getting going.

Cream of the coffee shops - Calgarians hungry for more than a cup of joe

Published April 11, 2013 by James Wilt in Bar & Restaurant Guide

But Russ Prefontaine, an owner and green-bean buyer for Fratello, is a tad perturbed. He can’t figure out why the shop is so “dead” at the moment. Standing-room only is the norm on weekends, and often during the late-morning rush, he explains. Overall sales have been increasing week by week. Needless to say, this sort of customer excitement around coffee isn’t typical for this city.

“It just goes to show how hungry Calgary is for something like this,” Prefontaine says, noting that Analog is the first café of its kind to set up in such a “mainstream” spot — it’s adjacent to the popular joints of Clive Burger, Sloth Records and The Big Cheese. “What I didn’t expect was to open the doors and be this busy right out of the gate.”

However, it’s not just Prefontaine who’s noticed the growing interest in artisan coffee. A shift has been happening across the city. It seems as though new roasters (Caffe Rosso), cafés (Savour and Gravity) and home-brewing websites (Eight Ounce Coffee) are popping up every few months. After five or so years of tillage, the scene is flourishing.

We now have the top two baristas in Canada, a huge accomplishment for a city of 1.1 million people. In September 2012, Jeremy Ho and Ben Put of Phil & Sebastian brought home the gold and silver, respectively, from the Canadian Barista Championship, earning Ho a chance to compete at the World Barista Championship in May, 2013 in Melbourne, Australia. Calgary’s officially on the country’s coffee map.

The Canadian champ says that he’s seen a massive shift in Calgary’s interest in coffee since he started working in the industry back in 2006. “Before, people weren’t ordering based on origin — they were ordering on roast level [light, medium or dark],” Ho says. “Now, people are starting to understand that coffees can be different depending on where they’re from, so that’s really cool.”

Of course, roasting is a fundamental part of making coffee (along with picking/processing green beans, and the physical preparation in the café), and David Crosby of Caffe Rosso is taking full advantage of the city’s new interest to teach customers about that part of the operation. Rosso has been roasting its own coffee for a few months now.

“The process of people seeing roasting in our Ramsay location is really big,” he says. “Customers are coming behind the counter and asking questions. The biggest reason that we put the roaster in our Ramsay location — instead of just in some warehouse — is for the customers to see it and be engaged with it, and to see yet another link in the chain.”

While Calgary may not have the sheer quantity of cafés as Vancouver or Toronto, the overall quality is undoubtedly comparable. As Ho puts it, “People are starting to taste distinctions between different chains and shops. And that’s huge — they can’t go back. We’re converting them.”

Colombian Coffee | Arnulfo Leguizamo, San Agustin, Huila

We are extremely excited and proud to be introducing you to not only one of, or THE BEST Colombian coffee in the world, but also one of the best coffees we have tasted in a very long time. Arnulfo Leguizamo, a coffee producer in San Agustin, a micro region of the Huila district broke records when he finished 1st place in the 2011 Colombian Cup of Excellence competion.

He not only was one of the highest ranked Colombian Coffee in history scoring a 94.05 (2nd highest) but he also recieved the highest price paid at any Colombian auction in history when bids reached $45.10 / lb green, FOB Colombia (with the average amount paid at that time being around $2.75 / lb). We purchased this coffee in November of 2012 on our last trip to Colombia.

Fratello Coffee has a very small amount of this coffee availalbe, only 300 lbs, but we are the only roasters in Canada to have access to it. There was only 900 lbs of this #1 Lot available world wide so we are happy to offer what we got.

Finca Primavera Overview:

- - Farm Name: Primavera

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>Producer:

Lot: 1
City: San Augstin
Region: Huila
Country: Colombia
Farm Size: 2.0 Hectares
Elevation: 6075 feet
Variety: 100% Caturra
Processing System: Full Washed, and Sun Dried
Lot Size: 300 lbs.

Mr. Arnulfo Leguizamo is 46 years old, son of a coffee farmer born in the municipality of Teruel, Huila. In his youth he studied several mechanical activities and after doing a lot of work in an urban environment, he decided that his future was in the field - dedicated to work with coffee.

He started by planting half of a hectare in the property of his father in Teruel. He traveled to the municipality of San Agustin 23 years ago, in order to know the mystical sculptures at the Archeological Park. Nevertheless, the climate, the warm people and mainly the wealth of earth caused him to fall in love with this municipality where he met Mrs. Aura Rita Bolanos his wife and the mother of his four children: Mayeli, Joh Edison, Diego Felipe and Hamer Duvan.

He began with 1 hectare, an inheritance of his wife, and after a while he bought 3 more hectares that he planted little by little with coffee. His farm is called “Primavera” and it is located in the village “El Tabor” at the municipality of “San Agustin”. Is cultivated with Caturra varietal and is being renovated to integrate the variety Castillo. He has been a Rainforest Alliance Certified farmer for 4 years, and he is committed to the protection to the environment. He is protecting springs and birds, he is recycling trash, and he doesn’t spray out chemical products. These principles are because of his sons - he wants to keep his place at least without contamination or pollution so they can live and eat there in the future in a healthy way.

His principals for the production of coffee are based on the quality; he says “I have to do things with love, dedication and with the support of my wife and my children. The advantages of this land where my farm is located are a secret but mainly because of the high altitude and the right temperatures we produce coffee with the best attributes for its taste. It is important for us to harvest only ripe-red cherries and process on time. We have to wash coffee well with clean water and dry it under sun and air for that we use the system: ‘Casa Elda’.”

The Prefontaine Brothers and Analog Coffee

Russ Prefontaine and Chris Prefontaine are the visionary brothers behind the hit wonder, Analog Coffee on 17th Ave, nestled in the heart of Mount Royal and the Red Mile business district, a better location could not have been chosen.

By Jeannette Vega B. | Modern Socialite

The sleek and stylish cafe has quickly attracted a discerning and loyal clientele who recognizes the artistry and passion being put forth in this initiative. The brother’s desire to bring a higher level of quality and service to Calgary has not gone unnoticed with the buzz about Analog being wide spread.

I sat down with Chris and Russ to find out more about their journey into Analog, I wanted to know what motivated them and drove their passion throughout the years. The quiet yet charismatic brothers had a lot to say, their extensive knowledge, dedicated heart and deep desire to bring us the very best was immediately apparent.

Q.1 When and how did your passion for coffee start?

1 - Its difficult to say when my passion for coffee started as it has been a part of my entire life. My parents started in the coffee business in 1974 so my brothers and I grew up with coffee around us all the time. When we were young boys we would earn an allowance through helping my dad clean up coffee brewers. My parents started roasting coffee in 1985, and as we got older, we began being able to assist my dad in the roasting department during our summer holidays. We would help package coffee and get orders ready for his clients. When I was in high school and College I started working at coffee shops. My brother Chris also worked in a coffee shop but in 1991 started Espuccino Imports with our oldest brother Jason while Chris was in College. Espuccino Imports was an Italian espresso equipment import company who also did service, installation and training for local coffee shops. I joined my brothers at Espuccino Imports as a service technician in 1994, but the three of us began partners in 1997 when we purchased my parents coffee roasting business which was called Custom Gourmet Coffee at the time.

Our coffee is consciously chosen, responsibly purchased, and carefully roasted.

Q.2 What motivated you to open up a retail location (Analog)

2 - Many people have asked us why we started Analog Coffee at the Calgary Farmers Market as well as our new flag ship location on 17th Ave SW. Our Analog Café’s were not designed to be “just another coffee house”. They were designed and created to give Fratello Coffee Roasters a voice directly who matters most. People who drink and enjoy our coffee everyday.

The idea of having our own cafe isn’t new. We have been talking about this for over 15 years when we first purchased the roasting company from our parents in 1997. Back in the early years of our roasting company, our father Cam Prefontaine did his best to buy better coffee from his competitors. He would experiment with different ways of roasting this coffee with the equipment he had and would service his customers way better than his competitors.

These were also the days before “2nd Wave” coffee was the norm, and back before anyone had even heard of Starbucks. Trying to convince the early bakeries and deli’s to buy what was “gourmet” coffee was a challenging thing to do. It was only the early/mid 90’s that Starbucks, Second Cup, Grabba Jabba (now Timothy’s) began to pop up on every corner that the ability for us to roast/sell higher quality coffee began to become easier.

In these years, or the 2nd Wave of coffee, we began working closer with our wholesale café customers with education on what espresso based beverages were all about. We did our best to encourage them and get them excited about wanting to sell better and better coffee. We would offer our brand image to them in hopes that they would represent us in a way which would create recognition for quality. This unfortunately is very challenging to do when you are required to rely on others to be your voice on the streets.

A big decision was made in 2007/2008 when we as a company decided to down-size and re-focus on what we cared most about. And what we cared about was quality. At this time we changed our name to Fratello Coffee Roasters (Italian for brother) and began to focus on our accounts who aligned with the same principles as us. If an account didn’t “fit” we simply decided to end the relationship. Over the course of 4 years, a 50-60% reduction in business as well as an entirely new company culture was formed. It was only during this process that we could begin our transition into becoming a “3rd Wave” coffee roaster.

The Third Wave of Coffee refers to a current movement to produce high-quality coffee, and consider coffee as an artisanal foodstuff, like wine, rather than a commodity, like wheat. This involves improvements at all stages of production, from improving coffee bean growing, harvesting, and processing, to stronger relationships between coffee growers and coffee traders and roasters, to higher quality and fresh roasting, at times called microroasting (by analogy with microbrew beer), to skilled brewing.

At Fratello we understand coffee because it has – literally – been our passion for over a quarter century! Hundreds of thousands of people have tasted our coffee without ever knowing it! With the opening of the Fratello Analog Café in the Calgary Farmer’s market in early 2011 we took the plunge into retail, and we’re delighted we did. We continue to learn new experiences each month which empowers us with new knowledge to better train/coach our wholesale clients. Our brand has become more recognized in this city as the leading quality coffee roaster and has enabled us to have a “voice” in the street (away from business to business) of our own, and put our brand in our own hands.

With the 2012 opening of our flagship store on 17th Ave and 7th Street we are again able to begin sourcing coffee an entirely new way! It wasn’t typical of us to introduce 2 or more coffees from the same growing region at once, but this is something we are starting this year. We find it’s such a great opportunity for our customers to discover different flavour characteristics a country has to offer when you are able to taste different farm/cooperative offerings, from the same growing region, side by side.

Therefore, What makes a great cup of coffee? Simply put, pride! Pride in how we source our product, by knowing our producers and knowing our regions, and not being afraid to always make the call that quality is more important than quantity. Attention to perfection then continues back here in Calgary, where we use our many years of roasting/training experience. Lastly, the magic plays out in our cafes, Analog Coffee, where our amazing staff – who all understand and live the Fratello philosophy – bring you the perfect cup of coffee every time you order it. Come and check us out.

Q.3 How do you feel Calgary is benefiting from Analog’s unique approach?

3 - I definitely see Calgary benefiting from Analog Coffee being opened up. It’s like a chicken or the egg thing; what came first – the great coffee house or the great city? At Fratello we’re obviously biased, but we believe that you have to have great coffee houses to make a great city. And just look around, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Vancouver and Seattle – they all have remarkable cafes. Take it a step further. How many movie sets or TV shows profile coffee shops? Tons of them, and there is a reason for that. Because great coffee houses bring out the very best in us. They allow us to appreciate the good things in life; things that often get missed in the hurly burly of our daily existence.

In a great coffee house we socialize, we think, and we somehow become instantly gracious and appreciative. Perhaps it’s the magic aroma of magnificently roasted coffee, or the professional skills of your barista, but somehow a good coffee shop ‘brings you inside’ and gives you as much value from the experience of the place as from the taste of the product.

With the upcoming fall 2012 opening of our flagship store on 17th Ave and 7th Street we’ll be in the heart of the action, helping to sustain the pulse of that vibrant part of town. Again, great café help build great cities.

What makes a great cup of coffee? Simply put, pride! Pride in how we source our product, by knowing our producers and knowing our regions, and not being afraid to always make the call that quality is more important than quantity. Attention to perfection then continues back here in Calgary, where we use our many years of roasting/training experience. Lastly, the magic plays out in our cafes, Analog Coffee, where our amazing staff – who all understand and live the Fratello philosophy – bring you the perfect cup of coffee every time you order it.

Coffee should be all about the people. The people who produce it, the people who roast/find it, the people who serve it and most importantly at Analog Coffee, the people who come in to enjoy it. And, great people make a great city!

Q.4 How do you stay current in your business?

4 - Staying current in this business is a constant battle. The coffee market is always changing, in the past 5 years has been changing faster than ever. New brewing methods, and the re-birth of older brewing methods are coming back. The way roasters source coffee is changing and we are pushing ourselves harder then ever to roast these coffees in ways which extenuate the natural flavours found in these beans. More than this is the consumer is he much more educated and expect more from the baristas at the best cafes. To compete in the cafe market at this level is hard work. Its about constant training and re-trainiing and never being satisfied with what you are currently doing. Being good, isn’t good enough.

We learn a lot from the roasters from around the world we meet when we are traveling to visit our coffee producers. We are always bouncing ideas off of each other and then stay in contact with social media. Twitter and Facebook are great ways to watch and learn from the best roasters/cafe in the world as well as going to different trade shows in this industry.

Really the bottom line for us to continually improve is the realization that we do not know all the answers. We have yet to perfect the art of roasting and the skill of customer service. We are striving to get there, but know we can never reach that goal, but by reaching for this goal we will continually improve what we do.

Since opening our doors at Analog Coffee 17th the main thing we have learned is that there has been a hunger for this level of cafe in Calgary. There are many cafes in Calgary that are doing a great job, but Analog has tried to create a very friendly and approachable atmosphere. We do not want anyone to feel intimated to ask questions and order beverages from our baristas. We want to give the information to the clients who are interested in it, but not be over bearing or “coffee snobs” to clients who are just starting to explore coffee of this quality. Our clients are really enjoying this and continue to support us as we perfect our systems in this new venture.

Stop by for a unique coffee experience and you might just end up staying longer than expected, savour an exquisite pastry or sandwich from one of the carefully chosen partners like Sidewalk Citizen and La Boulangerie, it will most certainly be an enjoyable stop that might end up being your favourite.

Avenue Magazine's Review on Analog Coffee 17th Ave.

Longtime local coffee roaster, Fratello, first expanded from roasting beans to serving them at its Analog Coffee stand in the Calgary Farmers’ Market in 2011. Now, the Fratello brothers, Russ and Chris, have added a second location to their roster on the corner of 17th Avenue S.W. and 7th Street S.W.

17th Avenue welcomes a new café where people can get their Fratello coffee fix and other sweet and savoury treats.

Lattes at Analog are made with locally roasted Fratello beans.

Analog Coffee sits on the corner of 17th Avenue and 7th Street S.W.

If you can’t quite place the location, perhaps you’ll remember what it was before: A Buy Rite store. After decades of being a convenience store, the space has undergone an extensive facelift. The interior, which seats approximately 30 people, is bright and clean. White walls reflect any the sun shining in through the cafe’s front floor-to-ceiling windows, making the baristas’ work station the focal point of the room. Although limited, the comfortable booth seating is highlighted by two rows of black pendant lamps and an accent wall with an eclectic array of artwork. Last, but not least, Analog pays homage to its location’s predecessor, with the original “Buy Rite Store” lettering mounted proudly on the east wall.

Now, for the drinks. Honestly, if you’re really in a rush or looking for a non-fat triple venti caramel mocha whatever, than Analog Coffee probably isn’t for you. Like anything of quality in this world, the Fratello brothers believe that a good cup of coffee takes time. Here, their team of baristas operate The Slayer — a top-of-the-line espresso machine created by Fratello (now used in many top cafés all over the world) — to create espresso-based beverages, complete with latte art of course, and a pour-over system for drip coffee.

Aside from the house espresso called The Godfather, the small batch coffee roasts rotate regularly, and most beans are direct trade and single estate.

Sandwiches from the Sidewalk Citizen Bakery (like this Copa ham sandwich) are delivered to Analog fresh daily.

It’s rare for me to say an establishment makes none of its food offerings in-house and mean it as a good thing, but I’m happy to report that all sandwiches, savoury and sweet baking are delivered fresh daily by the Sidewalk Citizen Bakery so you can be assured of the highest quality.

Grab a scone or biscuit to go with your morning coffee before work. If you’re popping by closer to the lunch hour, try one of Sidewalk Citizen’s artisan baguette sandwiches. Although the baguettes change throughout the week, the roasted turkey with roast fennel, arugula and curry mayo or the Copa ham sandwich with tomato jam, Swiss cheese and pickled cabbage are two of the possibilities that your tastebuds may stumble across.

Analog is also open in the evenings, making it an ideal spot for a casual date, to get some work done (yes, there is free wifi), or to just sit up at the counter by the window to people watch on the always-buzzing 17th Avenue.

(740 17 Ave. S.W., 403-265-2122, fratellocoffee.com, @FratelloAnalog)

This story was written by Dan Clapson (Twitter @dansgoodside) and part of Avenue's free weekly Food & Drink Newsletter. Sign up now and get fresh dining news in your inbox every Tuesday.

Calgary Herald's Review of Analog Coffee 17th Ave.

You know those idyllic coffee shops you see in advertisements for really expensive jewelry or high-tone perfume? The kind of place where tall windows spill light across hardwood floors onto shiny espresso machines, and where hip customers lean into each other, deep in conversation? Thats the new Analog Coffee (740 17 Ave. S.W.) in a nutshell.

Stepping out of 17th Avenue traffic through the corner door of the former Buy Rite grocery store is like crossing into a slightly amplified — and caffeinated — world. The December light glows golden at midday and the air is filled with the intoxicating aroma of espresso. Buy Rite lives on in its old metal sign letters hung over the coffee bar (Free Delivery is there too) but otherwise the space is fully updated. Herringbone hardwood covers the floors while those light-spilling windows are sealed against winter’s blast. Long black banquettes line the walls and a handful of tables fill the small room.

A long bar hosts a Fratello Slayer espresso machine — one of the best on the market — and a pour-over section for those wanting a longer coffee. For the fly-by crowd on the run, there will soon be larger coffee carafes at the ready for take-out. And for those feeling a bit peckish, there’s fresh baking from La Boulangerie and Sidewalk Citizen. That includes some of Sidewalk’s creative sandwiches built by talented chef Colin Metcalfe.

Analog Coffee is the second shop created by Chris and Russ Prefontaine, the brothers behind Fratello Coffee Roasters. Their first Analog opened in the new Calgary Farmers Market last year and always seems to have a lineup. Now the brothers have taken their concept uptown.

So what is their concept? Good coffee of course, using responsibly grown, direct trade beans (sourced directly from the growers) and a combination of technology (the Slayer) and handmade (pour-over). Combine that with service by baristas who know their product and you get a good cup of coffee.

Then there’s the Analog name, referring to their desire to hand-craft every cup of coffee and serve foods that are equally hand-crafted. Look along the back wall of Analog, under the Buy Rite sign, and you’ll see a long row of LPs, records collected from numerous sources around town. Although Analogs soundtrack is now distinctly digital, they plan to install a turntable and crank out old analog tunes from the disks. Perhaps that will make the coffee even tastier and the light just a little more golden.

John Gilchrist’s new Eat Canada restaurant app is now available at the App Store. He can be reached at or 403-235-7532.

Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony June 3rd!

Analog Cafe and Fratello Coffee are honored to be hosting a traditional Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony this Friday June 3rd at Analog Cafe at the Calgary Farmers Market!

Please join us at 11am on Friday June 3rd at Analog Cafe at the Calgary Farmers Market to take part in this ceremony. We are very pleased to have Fikerte Neguisse and Maron Abera from Amharic Immersion Calgary lead us in this ancient Ethiopian tradition. They are excited to share this tradition with you. They will be roasting and uniquely preparing our Fratello Ethiopian Sidamo Ardi right at Analog Cafe.

Fratello Coffee Roasters and Analog Cafe are honored that we can help bring this part of coffee tradition to you in Calgary and hope that you are able to join us June 3rd at 11am!

Fratello Analog Cafe: Now Open Thursday-Sunday Calgary Farmers Market!

Fratello Coffee Roasters is excited to announce that Analog Cafe is open for business at the Calgary Farmers Market! We welcomed our first customers on Thursday April 21st. We look forward to serving you at Analog Cafe. Come visit us right at the entrance to the market. We are open Thursday-Sunday sharing great coffee with Calgarians!

Analog Cafe: Calgary Farmers Market 510 77th Avenue SE, Calgary, Alberta

Thursday: 11 am - 7 pm
Friday: 9 am - 5 pm
Saturday: 9 am - 5 pm
Sunday: 9 am-5 pm

Idle Tea Public Tasting Feb 24th 1:00-2:30 at Fratello Coffee

Fratello Coffee Roasters and Analog Cafe invite you to come taste our launching line-up of Idle Tea: Single Origin, Unblended, Fresh Crop tea sourced direct from gardens.

We welcome the public to Fratello Coffee Roasters Thursday Feb 24th at 1:00 to experience our seven carefully selected Idle Teas.

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