Smorgasburg Smackdown: How to Choose Between Competing Vendors
Their Pitch:
Grady’s: “Our cold brew system really sets us apart, as does the fact that you can customize our product to your taste. Blue Bottle puts sugar in theirs, and you can’t undo sugar. We’re about providing you with a really good base.”
Blue Bottle: “Our coffee is the best around because we make sure we’re delivering the best we can at every step, from sourcing the beans to roasting them to spending a lot of time in our test kitchen deciding exactly how much milk, sugar, water and chicory we should add.”
The Winner: Grady’s, by a cold-brewed mile
Our morning is ruined (ruined!) if our corner coffee shop inadvertently pours sugar in our cup of joe, so the pre-sweetened java at Blue Bottle was a definite deal-breaker for us. And while chicory-infused coffee is, by definition, bitter, unlike Blue Bottle’s version, Grady’s remained full-bodied and smooth instead of becoming thin and astringent. It’s also a better deal — Blue Bottle’s one-size offering is equivalent to Grady’s small, meaning that $4 at Grady’s almost doubles your pleasure — doubles your caffeine.