Davis Street Espresso - Dallas, TX
When I first began diving deep into the coffee culture, I was living in Dallas, Texas. So, there are quite a few spots that inspired me so profoundly that I didn't even realize it until I came back to these same southern spots nearly a year later.
Davis Street Espresso in the Bishop Arts District (which is one of the coolest areas in Dallas filled with amazing food & drink hubs) was one of those spots and continues to be a personal favorite of mine.
But this time around, I got to get to know Davis Street Espresso on a more personal level, thanks to #CoffeeAngel William who was able to entertain me with their story, their unique traits and what's ahead for this magical spot.
Q&A with Barsita William
So, what's ya'lls story?
"The owner was in the accounting industry and his business travel took him to Europe and he got inspired by coffee there.
He came back to Dallas (this is about 10 years ago) and grew frustrated that there were no good coffee or coffee shops around. He began roasting his own beans. Slowly more and more friends began to ask for the beans. He decided he needed to either stop or completely dive into it because his love for coffee was consuming him.
Fast forward years later and Oak Cliff Roasters is one of the most popular roasting companies in the Big D.
Awesome. So there's the roasting company and then there's the physical spot of Davis Street Espresso. What's up with the weird hours?
So this space is more like a show room for everything that is going on back here.
Our main business is the coffee roasting. We don't want to take away business from our clients that sell our coffee.
When we close at 2pm we have a sign on our door that says Hey go visit Wild Detectives down the road, they brew our coffee too.
Earlier you used the term "hyper community." What do you mean by that?
We didn't want to be a giant coffee shop that's why we aren't Oak Cliff espresso - that's serving a huge population. We just wanted to be that one coffee shop that people around the neighborhood go to. Of course you still have people that travel here from Plano on the weekends and from all over really.
So, no wifi and a stunning space & some traditional gear.
Nope. No wifi. I enjoy many coffee shops where I can pull out my laptop and get some work done, but we are a different space.
You can take a look at the long tables indoors and even the beer garden style out side. We wanted a space to promote conversations.
And yes, these days you don't see too many espresso machines with the lever and now they are being designed to that the bulk of the machinery is underneah the bar.
But we wanted everything to be visible for the customer The conversations that we want to be had at that area can also be had between the barista and customer because of this open layout.
The Bosco espresso machine is a handmade fully manual leverage espresso machine from Italy from the Bosco Family. Every machine is trying to mimic a lever the way it handles pressure and we just love the beautiful and macnancis of it. It doesn't need to be a 20 thousand machine to make good espresso. The steam punk called Alfa Daminchi - It's essentially automate siphon brew. We get to develop some recipes and those recipes deal with volume water temperature and then it uses steam from the boil to agitate the grounds so we control how much that agitation comes into play. What we love about its consistent.
One really great barista can do one great chemex at a time. So this one barista could knock out four different single origins and continue to chat with people and not be so focused that interaction is lost with the customer. This is the fifth one put on the line so you won't see too many like this.
Is there a favorite of yours or a signature drink of Davis Street Espresso?
It sounds cliche but, we love everything that we have.
Myself? It just depends on the time of the day.
Almost everything we do is medium to medium light roast. Our goal is to not mess up what the farmers do. we do ken dark roast but it's not a dark oily offe. We actually cupped our decaf about a month ago and probably 70 percent of people liked it the most and where shocked that it was decaf.
We are very intentional about what we roast.
What's the future looking like for you guys?
Well, 70% of our coffee is direct trade. The owner tries to get al of the farms in a 2 year period - the next goal is to have direct trade in Africa.
Ps. Did I forget to mention there's a gutted out trolley in the back? I consider these guys the Volkswagen of the South.
Thank you #CoffeeAngel William for your passion for coffee and we can't wait to see what happens next for Davis Streeet Espresso!
If anyone visits the place, feel free to share a picture or your experience here. An empty trolley calls for all sorts of creativity.
Until next time,
Mugs Up,
The Coffee Nomad