Turnstile Coffee Roasters — Restaurant in Belmar

Most relaxed morning. My first visit with a coffee roaster. See pics. We didn't want to leave Turnstiles. Spending the day in Belmar we came upon this unique dream. The coffee was superb. IF I had my choice I would never drink Starbucks DD WaWa or anything else. The ambiance was amazing. We felt so relaxed in a shop of strangers. The workers were superior and friendlier then any place we've been. As we walked around the shoppe it seemed like a movie fairy tale. Everyone was in conversation on tablets reading books smiling etc and so relaxed. In door and out door seating. Plenty of parking. This is a coffee shop but the bagels we had were fresh and bagel store quality to go with the most amazing coffee. We felt obligated to share pictures but not sure we captured the love we felt. We wanted to take pics of the relaxed patrons but our kid said that's not right. Put this place on a bucket...

I use the Coffee Hound in Bloomington, Illinois as the ultimate benchmark for excellent coffee when I rate other coffee shops...it's a level rarely achieved. This coffee shop has excellent decor, great marketing, and friendly staff. The LaMarzocca Espresso machine is the very same model I learned on. The espresso is good, and allow me to qualify that. It tastes like it was brewed perhaps too quickly, is slightly over-roasted, for me, and has a bit of an after taste. The roaster informed me that they did in fact start roasting the beans darker, just shy of city-plus. It is, however, very enjoyable. The baked goods are excellent. Latte art was good. The price was a bit high but it is the east coast. $15.46 for two baked goods and two...

Not impressed. This seems to be a very white favored space. Not uncommon we know but we were the only people of color and we felt it. The woman taking our orders gave us very cold treatment, which we paid no mind to at first but the group of white customers behind us were treated very differently with warmth and smiles. They ended up messing up our order, I'm lactose intolerant and my Iced Oat latte (clearly labeled oat on the cup) was almost white in color and full of half and half cream. $6 in the trash. Perhaps it was a mistake but it was all a pretty unfortunate experience for us....