Best Café Expansion Aroma Caffé & Coffee Sales
346 N. Fourth Ave. STAFF PICK: This quintessentially European coffee shop
proves that too much of a good thing--as the venerable Mae West
once said--can be wonderful. There on the lower end of North Fourth
Avenue, the café has been a hotbed of activity since it
opened three years ago. But in this past year, owner Serge Gongora
has traded his customary tête-à-tête hospitality
for a semi-private huddle around an increasingly dog-eared set
of blueprints...and more than a couple of truckloads of new accouterments.
(Our favorite was the day a few months back when he and two nervous-looking
employees hustled a small, yellow piano out of the bed of an old
Ford truck, and into the main dining room.) Not content with last
year's expansion into the neighboring corner space (now a lovely,
sunlit room with sturdy, arty picnic table-booths), he's continuing
plans for a larger kitchen, coffee bar, and tableside service.
With rotating shows by local artists, some of downtown's more
inventive (if sporadic) live music offerings, and the best black-bean
salad around, Aroma is definitely worth investigating. Bring your
own hardhat. (Renovations were slated for an optimistic completion
date of late-September.)
