At Quills, we are constantly pursuing better coffee and better service. Of course, there's no greater indicator of either goal than the happiness of our regular customers. But one of the best ways to push ourselves to grow and improve is by competing in national coffee competitions. Over the last couple of years we've competed in the US Barista Championship, Cup Tasters, Latte Art, and Brewers Cup. Next week in Chicago we're taking on a new challenge: America's Best Coffeehouse.
In this competition, teams of three baristas take turns running a pop-up café on the tradeshow floor of CoffeeFesh Chicago. While the teams serve the conference goers they are judged by both secret shoppers and technical judges. Each team is evaluated on their teamwork, customer service, and beverage quality.
At Quills we're proud of the hard work and dedication that each one of our baristas puts into their job, so picking a team for the competition was challenging. In the end, we picked 3 baristas that regularly work at our U of L café, due to the high volume and high pressure of the location during the college semester. Anyone who has been in during the weeks leading up to finals knows it can be a hectic work environment!
Our team is being helmed by our U of L manager Kansas Andrade. Joanna Miller will be brewing filter coffee with Hario V60s and Cameron Mulvey will be running the espresso machine. As a sort of dress rehearsal, our team is taking over Quills Baxter on Saturday to serve our customers a special menu that includes two new signature drinks. Be sure to swing by, try something new, and wish our team luck!