URBAN GRUB SERVES UP FEAST OF TASTY TREATS
Expanded enterprise adds breakfast, larger lunch menu, meals to take home
Sharon and Eric Day have toiled in the local catering industry for more than 20 years, building a long list of clients for their Indulge Catering business. Their motto is that they cook for their customers the same way they cook for their family and friends. It’s a simple mantra that keeps people coming back for their tuna melts and blackened chicken Caesar salads and tequila-lime prawns. They’ve worked out of a commercial bay at 5524 1A St. S.W. for the past 12 years, building their trade.
Sidewalk Citizen was their neighbour for a few years before the bakery-cafe shifted operations to the Simmons Building. When Sidewalk moved out of their bay three years ago, the Days moved in, expanding their operation and offering some lunch dishes and takeout foods. They called the new place Urban Grub (403-723-4012). That business grew to the point where they’ve now decided to add breakfast, more takeout foods and a larger lunch menu.
To accommodate the changes, the Days closed Urban Grub over Christmas and New Year’s and while most of us were enjoying the festive season, the Days tore the place apart, replacing the floor, adding new custom counters from Wood Hippy Co., and bringing in new tables and display cases. And in their spare time, they developed a new menu. A few days ago, they reopened and are now running 6:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays., until 7 p.m. Thursday and Friday.
Urban Grub is a cornucopia of tasty treats. The shelves are laden with pineapple jam and apple-cinnamon syrup, nutty granola and cayenne-and-pinksalt brittle, chocolate ganache brownies and house-made tandoori potato chips, pickled garlic and red pepper relish. There’s a wealth of fresh soups, chilies and stews — all “processed” for longer shelf life — frozen dinners and daily specials. And then there’s the breakfast menu of Denver wraps, caramelized banana pancakes and huevos rancheros. And a long list of lunch wraps, sandwiches and salads. Most restaurants don’t have this much variety.
So Urban Grub has become a one-stop shop for a quick breakfast, a lunch to-go and a frozen meal to take home for dinner.
Jeremy Ho, Justin Eyford and Ben Put, the partners behind Monogram Coffee, have expanded again, opening their third cafe in Britannia at 800 — 49th Ave. S.W. (That’s in the new building facing Elbow Drive at the entrance to Britannia Plaza.) With the opening of this location, they’re able to showcase some of the new ideas they’ve been working on, such as their “Atlas” coffee concept.
Monogram’s Atlas marks coffees from around the world, not only by growth but by roasting. At any given time they will feature the coffees of international roasters they like and respect. Right now they have three coffees from Tim Wendelboe of Oslo available in beans or by the cup. (A friend of mine who lives a few hundred metres from Wendelboe’s Oslo shop calls it a Norwegian coffee mecca.) They also have a couple varieties from Denver’s Sweet Bloom Cafe & Roastery in addition to the seven beans they are roasting themselves. (Monogram installed their own roaster last fall.)
The idea behind the Atlas plan is to build a coffee library where you can order a cup from a broad range of roasters. Even after the roasters’ two-month “residency” ends, individual portions of the beans will be vacuum-packed and frozen to allow customers to try a world of coffee. The pack-andfreeze concept also allows them to occasionally bring in superexpensive coffees and offer them by the cup with little wastage.
Most of the guest coffees will be dripped through a new Marco SP9 precision auto-drip brewer. If that sounds like a lot of coffee techno-blab, it is, so go and watch a cup of coffee being brewed in this lovely Irish machine. It’s the next generation of “pour-over” coffee.
Adding to the tech side of the coffee biz is a new La Marzocco Linea PB, which weighs both the coffee grounds and the output of the espresso to create a balance that maximizes flavour. Ah, the technology of coffee.
Want more? Monogram has worked with Made by Marcus Ice Cream to create a soft-serve coffee ice cream. Featuring Monogram’s own Ethiopian roast coffee it makes a delightful caffeinated alternative.
The Monogram partners know their coffee and are also known and respected worldwide. Ben Put has won the Canadian Barista Championships four times and has finished as high as third in the world (twice) against dozens of international champions. Ho has also won the Canadian Championship and together the Monogram team has trained many other skilled baristas.
Beyond the new bells and whistles, the latest Monogram is a bright, sunny, 28-seat space that has already attracted the laptop crowd to set up shop. But they’re attracting a new crowd, too. Although they’ve been open in Altadore for almost three years and in Fifth Avenue Place for over two years, they’ve received requests in the new outlet they’ve never had before — this crowd would like newspapers to go with their coffee. It’s an oldschool combo that works — coffee and a newspaper — especially with the latest precision-brewed cup of joe.