Sorry Starbucks. Like an old friend, you’ll do for a date in a pinch, but you just don’t have that special something like you used to. And Freedom of Espresso? We had our little fling. It was good, but you just weren’t dangerous enough.
Kind Coffee came into my life at the precise time my coffee snobbery had begun to escalate. Recess and Co-op beans had carried me through my post-Starbucks slump with dignity, but after a while they just couldn’t meet the Pacific Northwest’s cult of the bean standard. Now I’m a real nerd and I roast my own, but in that precious window before my roaster and I were united in holy matrimony, Fayette Street’s Kind Coffee was the little shop that had my heart.
As you’ll see in the video, Kind’s proprietor Doug Nicolaisen roasts, brews, and serves what he calls the best cup of coffee in Syracuse. Since 1996, Nicolaisen has operated his small business at 715 W. Fayette St., catering to morning commuters on their way downtown for work. Over the years he’s developed quite a following.
