Cafe Luwak Blog

If you havent had a chance to pick up a copy of Tales from the Ypsilanti Archives, we have them, and we are offering a free latte with the purchase. I have known the author, Laura Bien, since I opened the cafe over five years ago, so I was really excited when the publisher asked me if I would be willing to sell her book in my shop. I have read a number of her blogs over the years, and I really think she is an incredible writer. So if you havent had a chance to read any of her work, pick up a book and check out her articles on YpsiCiti.com and the Ypsilanti Historical Museum Blog.

Over the past few years our soups have really gotten kind of boring. We used to have a cook who was really into making soup and we always had cool new soups on the menu. When she left, she had only a fraction of her soups written down, so we have made those and a few different ones, but we havent had enough variety to really be thought of as a cool soup place. Well now that we have multiple cooks with a variety of styles, we are working on putting together an updated list of recipies. If you havent tried our soups in a while, I would really suggest you give them a try. So far the customer feedback on the new soups has been just outstanding.

Since last summer we have been trying out having waiters and waitresses on the weekends during the buffet. We have had some ups and downs with doing table service, and it is a bit of a learning curve, but the improvement in efficiency is really noticeable when we do it right. Instead of having dine in customers waiting in line at the counter to place their order then having to go find a seat and wait again, having a server gives dine in customers quick attention and they are able to place their orders in comfort. This has an advantage for the takeout customers too in that the lines are shorter becuase the dine in customers are already seated. The cafe now has a wait staff daily during breakfast and lunch, and we hope to expand table service to the evenings as soon as we expand our grilled menu to the evenings.

Now that we have our breakfast running every day, we are working on putting together a new menu of grilled items. Over the next couple of months we will be trying new things and testing out specials during lunch. So if you get a chance come in and try some of our new grilled items and let us know what you think. If there is something you think would fit the cafe well that you dont see, let us know, and we will be happy to try it out.