Victor Allen’s Coffee

When I visited, I asked the barista «How do you make your espresso?» She was confused: «I put the coffee in the thing and use the tamper…»; I stopped her, clarifying: «Do you make it ristretto, or…», to which her puzzlement was apparent: «I don’t know what that is.»
I don’t expect most people to know how espresso is made, but I do expect it of a barista. Yikes. I played it safe and ordered a drip coffee, which turned out to be quite stale.

Victor Allen’s is the TOPS!
I had a bit of downtime between meetings in Madison the other day, and in lieu of the evil monster that is Starbucks, I opted to try something different. A quick search in my GPS garnered Victor Allen’s, so off I went!
My skim vanilla latte was so incredibly rich and tasty I could hardly believe it was skim! I’m not a normally a huge foam fan, but this latte foam was out of this world! It almost tasted like an unsweetened whipped cream. It was so good, in fact, I double checked with the barista to confirm it really was a skim latte. She laughed and confirmed its «skimness» and let me know that they have the best coffee beans around, which makes for an excellent coffee drink.
I believe this location is where the retired ladies of Madison gather for their book club or something because there were two big tables of the over 65 crowd grouped together dishing on gossip and slugging down their coffee. It was sweet.
Excellent coffee, excellent atmosphere. Because I essentially live in Wisconsin November through March for work, I know I’ll get the opportunity to return!