Feature article
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Kaffe Blue: Small-town coffee house big on flavor
By Fred Sauceman
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| Lisa and Chris Allen |
It starts with espresso, brewed from coffee beans freshly roasted at Elizabethton’s Coffee Company. Steamed milk, honey, vanilla and cinnamon come next. Swirls of whipped cream create the foamy finish.
The result is the House Latte at Kingsport’s Kaffe Blue, a warm, satisfying, sweet beverage created by Lisa Allen, the co-owner.
Customers describe Kaffe Blue as a coffee house “like you would find in much larger cities.” It’s home is Kingsport’s original Woolworth’s building on Broad Street.
Come 11:30 a.m., says Steven Starnes, an employee of the City of Kingsport, tables are at a premium.
“I eat here about two or three times a week,” says Steven, who spends his weekends searching out locally-owned eateries all over the region. “Back in the summer, I especially enjoyed the Summer Salad, with strawberries and feta cheese.”
Now, with the coming of fall, Steven is turning to Baha Enchilada Soup, with black beans, corn, tomato broth, and chicken, or the white chicken chili.
Kaffe Blue fare works well in any season, though. On one of the hottest days of late summer, I bookended my meal with an oversized coffee mug full of the Baha Enchilada Soup and a cup of that incomparable latte.
Kaffe Blue offers a full line of salads, including Greek and Cobb, and sandwiches, with bread choices such as white, wheat berry and Jewish rye. Several of the sandwiches are encased in ciabatta bread, like the popular Pesto Turkey, a color-coordinated sandwich with light green basil pesto, dark green lettuce and red tomato.
Croissants with chicken salad, wraps with a Greek theme and grilled panini are among the sandwich choices. The TBC features turkey, bacon, and Swiss and provolone cheeses. The Ole Smokey is composed of ham, smoked cheddar, a garlic spread, lettuce, tomato and red onion. Classics like a Reuben with corned beef and a Club are on the menu as well.
As sides for sandwiches, diners can choose chips, pasta salad or a cucumber salad with crinkle-cut cucumbers and carrot cubes in a tart dressing. All sandwiches come with a plank of dill pickle.
Kaffe Blue occupies a cavernous, brick and hardwood building dating to 1927, but Lisa, her husband Chris and their staff have made it comfortable, from the seating in the showcase windows to the well-padded furniture around the fireplace.
The business opened on March 3 of this year, but Lisa and Chris had worked for a year and a half on the renovation. They struck up a business relationship with John and Lisa Bunn, owners of The Coffee Company in Elizabethton, the only place I know of in the region that roasts its own coffee.
“They are master roasters,” says Lisa, a former dental hygienist.
The Allens are “shocked” at the amount of business they’ve had, but then again, a lot of anticipation built up during the renovation.
“We worked so long, and people peered in the window,” says Lisa. “We never expected it to be this busy.”
With downtown Kingsport set to attract more and more people taking advantage of higher education opportunities, the time is right for a coffeehouse and soup-and-sandwich shop. The age range at Kaffe Blue is wide, from toddlers to office workers to retirees, all in pursuit of a good, simple, hot meal and a comforting cup of coffee.
--------GoTriCities--------
Food writer Fred Sauceman, author of the book “The Place Setting: Timeless Tastes of the Mountain South — from Bright Hope to Frog Level,” is senior writer and executive assistant to the president for public affairs at East Tennessee State University. E-mail him at sauceman@etsu.edu.
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