Yearly Archives: 2012

Picture of the Week ~ Durham Street Piano

 Tom Merrigan - Durham Street Piano 102

This week’s photo was taken at the 2nd Annual “Marry Durham” celebration held this past Saturday on Rigsbee Avenue in downtown Durham. The event is a celebration of the communities’ commitment to the Bull City and featured a parade, live music, and great food from several local food trucks. Pictured above is Tom Merrigan the “Durham Street Piano” player entertaining the crowd gathered in front of Fullsteam Brewery with one of his fun boogie-woogie tunes.  Tom was joined by a few of  my friends from the Bulltown Strutters Kevin (on snare) and Todd (Sousaphone).

Check out the video below to learn more about Tom and his story behind making the Durham Street Piano Project a reality.

Video courtesy of Mimi Schiffman

2 Comments

Filed under Music, Picture of the Week

2nd Annual Brew Durham ~ March 31st

Brew-Durham-final-logo

Another great opportunity for Triangle beer lovers to taste the region’s finest home brewed beer while supporting a great cause!  BrewDurham is a beer festival celebrating homebrewers from Durham, NC and surrounding areas, and the beer that they make! This event is organized by Keil Jansen and proceeds will benefit The Scrap Exchange, a nonprofit creative reuse center in Durham.  BrewDurham will include two sessions on Saturday March 31, 2012. Session 1 runs from 1-4 pm.  Session 2 runs from 5-8 pm.   The festival will include food trucks, music and of course, beer.  The Triangle’s finest homebrewers are bringing 60+ beer types for your tasting and enjoyment.

Where:
The Scrap Exchange, 923 Franklin Street – Durham, NC (Google Map)

When:
Saturday, March 31st
Session #1: 1-4 pm
Session #2: 5-8 pm

Tickets:
Tickets are on sale now!  Link to buy tickets

Tickets are $30 per person with $5 Designated Driver/Non-drinking tickets also  available.

Food:
Chirba Chirba Dumplings and Pie Pushers  will be on location to satisfy your food desires.  In addition, LOAF will be baking pretzels to amp up the FestVibe.  Durham’s newest food truck, Monut’s Donuts will be onsite making donuts for everyone!

Music:  To be announced soon!

Beer:
At last count, there were more than 70 different beers registered to be available at BrewDurham! You can view the list of beers here.

Transportation:
There will be parking available at the event, but we’d love to see people using the Bull City Connector to get downtown to keep the party alive!  The BCR runs every 20 minutes on Saturday and will take you downtown past The Pinhook and Motorco and The Cookery, home of many of Durham’s finest food trucks.

To get an idea what the event is like, check out this video from the inaugural Brew Durham event held back in 2011:

Leave a comment

Filed under Events, Food Trucks, Local Beers and Breweries

Boogie Bean Coffee Roasters ~ Local Coffee Roaster in Holly Springs!

Fullscreen capture 3132012 120146 PM

As you have probably noticed by now from my recent posts, I have a special place in my heart for locally roasted, fair trade, organic coffee.  So you can imagine my excitement when I recently discovered a local micro roaster located right here in the Triangle! Allow me to introduce you to Boogie Bean Coffee Roasters of Holly Springs.

kevin064

Photo Courtesy of Boogie Bean Coffee Roaster & Laurence Lynn Photography

About Boogie Bean Coffee Roasters

The husband and wife team Kevin and Ali operate Boogie Bean Coffee Roasters, a small batch coffee roasting company in Holly Springs, NC.  Their passion for coffee started several years ago when they began purchasing specialty local roasted coffee here in North Carolina and found that their coffee drinking experience was unbelievably better than when they used grocery store brands.  As frequent customers of local coffee shops, over the past two years they have have developed a close relationship with owner of Java Jive Coffee shop in Cary on Kildaire Farm Road.

kevin099

Photo Courtesy of Boogie Bean Coffee Roaster & Laurence Lynn Photography

When the owner of Java Jive mentioned to Kevin that some of their customers were roasting their own coffee at home he got the idea to try it himself.  Kevin went home and purchased a tiny home roaster on Ebay and started buying green coffee beans from Java Jive.  Sharing his home roasted beans with friends soon lead to people asking if they could pay for some his home roasted coffee and with that the Boogie Bean Coffee Roasters business was born!

kevin060

Photo Courtesy of Boogie Bean Coffee Roaster & Laurence Lynn Photography

Since forming the company Boogie Bean has purchased two more drum roasters to meet the demand for their coffee. You can now purchase their coffee in several retail stores, coffee shops, & restaurants in the Triangle area including:

Their coffee is also served at the Little Hen restaurant, a “farm to table” restaurant in Holly Springs that just opened this past week to rave reviews.

kevin062

Photo Courtesy of Boogie Bean Coffee Roaster & Laurence Lynn Photography

You can also order Boogie Bean coffee from their website and have it shipped directly to your door.  Shipping is just a flat $5.00 for any order under 5 lbs of coffee with FREE shipping on any order of 5 lbs of coffee or more. Their coffee inventory includes a  wide variety of coffees to meet every coffee lovers taste.  They always “roast to order” to ensure maximum freshness for their customers.

kevin050

Photo Courtesy of Boogie Bean Coffee Roaster & Laurence Lynn Photography

I am very excited to see the Triangle’s coffee scene continue to grow with quality local roasters and I look forward to trying the many roasts Boogie Beans offers. If you have a favorite let me know!

More Information

Boogie Bean Coffee Roasters: www.boogiebeancoffee.com

Twitter: @bbcoffeeroaster

Facebook:  Boogie Bean Coffee Roaster Fan page

10 Comments

Filed under Coffee

Buy Local! Designer’s Downtown Market ~ March 17th

Market 1

Photo Courtesy of Designer's Downtown Market

The next Designers Downtown Market will be held this Saturday, March 17th from 9am – 3pm in the parking lot of Ornamentea on West Street in downtown Raleigh. The event features fine locally made arts and crafts with an outdoor big city feel.  Our vendors showcase some of the finest handcrafted arts and crafts in the area: jewelry, pottery, apparel, stained glass, paper crafts and more!  Every show is different, with new artists and craftspeople coming in every event. Browse the vendor list at www.designersdowntownmarket.com to see who will be at the upcoming Market.

In addition to locally made handcrafted arts and crafts the downtown market will feature amazing local food vendors including Klausie’s Pizza Truck, Crumb, Monster Cookies & Cakes, Latin Flavors, and Cheesecakes by Brian.

dd2

Photo Courtesy of Designer's Downtown Market

Raindate:  Sunday, March 18th

Where: 509 N. West Street – Raleigh, NC  (Google Map)

When: 9am – 3pm

Website: www.designersdowntownmarket.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/designersdowntownmarket

Leave a comment

Filed under Events

Pictures of the Week ~ Electric Vehicle Spotted at North Raleigh Whole Foods

DSC02602

I ran across my first electric vehicle in the Triangle yesterday. It was the 100% electric Nissan Leaf.  I noticed it parked at a charging station in the parking lot outside of the North Raleigh Whole Foods off Six Forks Road.

DSC02601

There are two charging stations at this location. They are located on the side of the building next to the huge silver rainwater harvesting cistern.  At this time there is no fee for using these chargers. You may have noticed a second car is also parked by a charger. Unfortunately it was not an electric vehicle.  Just somebody too lazy to park in a regular parking spot.

DSC02599

To view a map of all the publicly available the  charging stations for electric vehicles (EV) in and around Raleigh head on over to the  Raleigh Connoisseur blog and check out his “Raleigh EV Charging Station Central” site.

7 Comments

Filed under Environmental, Picture of the Week