Bold Bean Coffee Jacksonville FL

When I was a youngster there was a little show some of you may have heard of called 'Friends.' Each week a group of 20 somethings living quite comfortably in New York City, would gather at their local coffee shop perfectly named "Central Perk", to muse and quip about their dramatic and interesting city lives. One of the shows characters played by what's-her-face even worked there sometimes, impressively only 3 hours a week and still able to live in a $15 million apartment and get to take infinite breaks to hop on a big orange couch with her friends.  This show made the coffee shop my generation's diner. Where once Elaine, George and Jerry used to sit cramped in a booth eating old pie and laughing at the sassy waitress, now Joey, Chandler, Monica, Phoebe, Rachel and Ross were sprawled out on a couch drinking craft beverages and laughing at a sassy barista.

My first job ever was playing guitar in a local Christian coffee shop for free coffee. That made me about as cool as you could get in Alabama. During that time there was a boom in Central Perk wannabes. Everywhere you looked was a new coffee shop with all the trimmings, fit to be tied, big orange couches, fun friends and loud, really freaking loud, machines drowning out all of the chatter.  We got over it pretty quick.

So let's talk about Bold Bean because everyone else is. When I first moved to Jacksonville I heard about Bold Bean constantly. I had my doubts because being from Atlanta, I know excellent coffee. It is a standard there. You'd be hard pressed not to find a shop that doesn't roast their own beans, french press every cup and has better draft beer than you can find anywhere in Florida. So I actually never tried Bold Bean. Until I did try it.

I went in as research for Chef's Garden as we were considering switching our coffee over to theirs because well, everyone likes it. I ordered an Americano and just added a touch of milk. It was wonderful. Like seriously good. Rich, bold, flavorful, not too bitter, all of that coffee descriptive stuff. All of it. I was a big fan. But what of the shop? What of the atmosphere? Could Bold Bean appease my coffee shop saturated boredom? Could it save me from the trauma that I experienced as a youth of walking into a million coffee shops around every corner and never getting to meet whats-her-face? Yes it could. Yes it did.

First of all, Bold Bean is right next to 13 Gypsies, which if you've never been, go there. Now. Tonight. Tres Leches. Do it.
That is already a great play in my book because they are close enough to the new King's Street Cool Hip Beer Bar Pub Antique whatever situation going on over there to be included, but far away to be more sort of a cool, chill, laid back place sipping on some joe, jamming on some tunes..you get the drift.

As if Bold Bean wasn't great enough for serving home-roasted coffee, awesome crafty drafty beers, and from what I've heard good food, now they are doing an open mic night every Wednesday which is nice for musicians like me tired of waiting 3 months to drive out to 3 layers and play for 15 minutes. It's also great for music fans like you to go and support local people making local coffee and singing home-made songs.

I love Bold Bean. I'm a big fan of the quality of their product, the location and vibe of their establishment and the things they are doing to promote themselves in the community. So maybe it's time to end that thing you've got going with the ol' joe from Seattle and find yourself a local-made, handcrafted java. See what I did there? See it?!
Long distance relationships don't work anyways. Stick with Bold Bean.