Welcome back to The Lounge. Times are at peak wackiness, therefore, I am electing to

1) Gloss over my absence in blogging. Yes, the last post was in February. Yes I am seeking to ignore that

2) Gloss over the pandemic. The jokes are too easy and also I can’t think of any.

All of the #RealOnes (original Leah Lounger’s) may be familiar with my previous coffee bracket, where I caffeinated myself across Tuscaloosa, Alabama in an attempt to find the ideal cold brew. I did this via a bracket. Oh no. Now I do have a joke in relation to the state of the pandemic. This is the closest thing to March Madness we will get. May Monstrosities. May Mania. May Madness. That’s a good one. Anyway.

I live in Fort Worth now. The FW in DFW. So 66% of the metroplex if we’re just looking at letters. Anyway, if you’re not familiar with Duh Fuh Wuh it is ginormous. Like really big. For reference. Ding Dong, Texas has 22 people as of some point.

The point of acknowledging Ding Dong, Texas is that well, there’s a lot of coffee shops in DFW. So I’m narrowing my scope to within Fort Worth. Rules are the same as before, randomly generated seed spots and all that jazz. All opinions from this post are my own and in my eyes they are correct. I will not be challenged by what I say. Also last time I did cold brew but let’s just compare the coffee shops altogether.

Also, in googling the coffee shops, I realize now there are a lot of them. So this is just going to be the first phase. I just can’t write about 20+ coffee shops right now. My brioche is in the oven and I have a @seeyaloserbaking post planned. So for THIS EDITION:

Here are the competitors:

Dwell Coffee & Biscuits

Craftwork Coffee Co. - Camp Bowie
Craftwork Coffee Co. - Magnolia
Buon Giorno Coffee

Avoca Coffee Roasters

The Coffee Shop in the Hulen Mall that Keeps Changing Names

Toasted Coffee + Kitchen

Summer Moon

One last thing, I want to emphasize that I love ALL of these places. This is not a comparison of good and bad, rather, a comparison of good and then better. Here we go.

So. Dwell Coffee and Biscuits. Buon Giorno Coffee. Both wonderful shops. Dwell Coffee and Biscuits has an edge though. It’s biscuits. Biscuit sandwiches. Yeah. A shop that’s entirely coffee and biscuits. Buon Giorno is good, has a wonderful coffee and tea selection, but Dwell has something especially special. And that’s the biscuits. The cold brew and lattes are good as well. So in comparing these two. I choose Dwell.

So . Craftwork Coffee Co. - Camp Bowie. Craftwork Coffee Co. - Magnolia. Both amazing shops because they are the same. So the key now is location. Camp Bowie. Parking is easier. I wish either of the shops had caramel but that’s okay the mocha is good. Craftwork Coffee Co. - Camp Bowie it is.

So. Avoca Coffee Roaster. The Coffee Shop in the Hulen Mall that Keeps Changing Names. Both are good! The Hulen Mall one is one the first floor and is just a simple coffee stand. However, it’s next to a hair booth where a guy always comes up and says “ma’am your hair is beautiful, HOWEVER” and then I black out because I heard all that I needed to hear. My hair is beautiful. Thank you, sir. Avoca Coffee Roasters is great. I actually have two cold brews on my desk right now that I ordered from there. And no one tried selling me shampoo there at least this time. So Avoca it is.

Oh goodness, this is the worst combination we could have ended up with. These are the two I intended to end with. Yes, this bracket was RIGGED. Of course, it was. You should have known me by now.

Toasted Coffee + Kitchen and Summer Moon are two of my favorite places in town. I wanted this to be the final round of the bracket where the drama would heighten but unfortunately, I messed up in setting them up. THEREFORE THE RULES ARE CHANGING. ALL OF THE OTHER COFFEE SHOPS ARE OUT. WE ARE NOW AT ROUND 7.

The other ones are fine but here we go. This was what I planned to end on. Both shops are AMAZING like honestly two of the best places I’ve been too. The service is incredible in both cases, I commented on one of Toasted’s posts and the literal owner liked my comment. Summer Moon gave me a gift card for having to wait 20 minutes for some food. Guys, I hadn’t noticed that the time had elapsed. I just kinda went up to ask because I was wondering what happened to the quiche. It was a good quiche.

I love the coffee/cold brew at both of these places. The food is amazing. Toasted’s food is incomparable, and yes they serve more than toast. I had a steak and eggs from there that led me to be reborn.

Honestly having to choose between these two is very difficult. So I think I actually made a mistake here by not exactly detailing the conditions and criteria of the bracket. I am my own worst enemy.

So here’s my nonsatisfying ending:

GET COFFEE AT SUMMER MOON IF YOU JUST WANT COFFEE. IF YOU WANT FOOD GO TO TOASTED AND ALSO GET THEIR COFFEE.

So there you have it, a betrayal for me via this blog post. I messed up and there is no going back. I broke the backspace key on my computer so everything is permanent. Well actually, I broke the ‘y’ key on my laptop. I don’t know ‘y’ I did that but there we go

My ending is I’m sorry. I’m going to make a blog post in the kitchen to make this up to you. Thanks for coming back to The Lounge.

Coffee Bracket: Fort Worth-It Edition