Lucky Goat Coffee — Restaurant in Tallahassee

Luck Goat Coffee A local Tallahassee Roaster

You could do worse, in fact Starbucks and Burger King actually have much worse coffee. The thing is, I used to have my own coffee roasting company. I appreciate a good cup of coffee. I also appreciate what it takes to be a successful small retail business. I have been working in the Tallahassee area for over two years, but we just this week moved to town. My wife and I were out getting odds and ends for our new home. I was getting pretty tired and suggested we treat ourselves to this local establishment. We ordered an iced coffee (her) and a small black coffee (me), a blueberry muffin, (me) and a pumpkin muffin (her). As I ordered my “small black coffee”, I noticed a sign promoting single origin coffee, reading through the list, I decided on the Guatemalan medium roast, which, from my experience is a really nice coffee. Because it was a single source, my $2.50, 12 oz coffee went to $4.50. I probably wouldn’t do that every day, but every once in a while, another $2 for something special is worth it. With a 15% tip, our two drinks and two muffins, to go was right at $20.00. Again, a little pricey, but something special, not out of line. When I switch to the single origin, the cashier says, it takes about 3 minutes for your single origin. I said OK. We paid, they made my wife’s cold coffee, served it to her, then got our muffins, boxed them and handed them over the counter. I am waiting for my coffee, and the cashier points to the far end of the counter and tells me my coffee will be served down there. I walk over to the place she pointed, and another young women starts to make my coffee. She turns around, now at least 5 minutes after the order has been paid for and says, you know its going to take three minutes? I said “from now?” she says , no, I am just about to start brewing it, and she does, and about 5 minutes later, I am served my coffee. I told her the cashier needs to tell customers it will be 10 minutes (which it was), not 3 minutes. She smiles and walks away. We get in our car, and start eating and drinking our coffee and muffins. The blueberry muffin is very good, the pumpkin is almost edible, my wife eats about half of it and throws the rest away. Her iced coffee was not quite as good as Dunkin, but better than Starbucks. My black coffee is almost as good as the typical McDonalds coffee. Not quite. I drank about 2/3rds of it and realized I was not enjoying it at all. I have paid $6 for a good cup of coffee. I usually pay about $2.00 for a drinkable cup. The ambience says “We are trying really hard to be a great little coffee shop” maybe a little pretentious, but also a little cute. Too bad the coffee is mediocre at gourmet prices, and the pastries are uneven. There appears to be a couple more local roasters. I am hoping they will be a better fit. Obviously, Lucky Goat has a following, and I hope they do well. They are better than Starbucks, but, to me, they are not the coffee house they are aiming for. I would rather have better coffee and either no pastries or consistently good pastries, in a shack, but I guess some people are happy with Lucky Goat, good for them. I cant see...

A good friend of mine has worked here for years, so I've known about Lucky Goat for some time now but - I must confess - I've never gone out of my way to give it a try. That was my mistake and I regret wasting away these prime coffee drinking years on the likes of gas stations, national brands, and the like. Truth is, I always assumed they focused on whole-sale exclusively. While Wholesale IS (I suspect) the bread & butter of the operation, Lucky Goat is very much focused on providing the coffee lovers in the community with a Nirvanaesque coffee experience.

Sure, I've frequented local coffee shops in TLH (in fact, when I visited Lucky Goat today, I was wearing a Craig's Killer Coffee shirt), but I didn't realize how good it would be to enjoy a cup here.

First of all, I was struck by the expertise in the subject by both guys behind the counter. I've been a Bustelo drinker ever since we returned to the U.S. in 1982. (I'm not sure what we bought when we lived in Germany or Spain - but I figure it was about the same). Furthermore, I'm accustomed to a Moka pot. Ben (who I know to be the proprietor of Lucky Goat - and one of the two guys behind the counter) explained to me the challenges of duplicating what I was accustomed to. When I told him I was ready to upgrade from what I'd known for the past 30+ years, he set me up with the Black Gold French Roast, ground coarser than Turkish yet finer than espresso. When I brewed a pot at home - it was perfect so (by way of this Yelp review, Ben, Thanks!).

The atmosphere is pure coffee shop, with more lighting than some of the broodier joints around these days. I do enjoy a clean & well-lit place.

I did notice there were pastries available, although I was really just here to indulge in the coffee and as other reviewers have noted, it is quite good.

Lucky Goat, furthermore, is conveniently located near where I live. It'll only require that I drive past two coffee shops that I formerly frequented in order to enjoy this TLH pearl.

If you're a coffee lover, or simply enjoy the coffee culture itself, then it's very likely you already have your coffee corner in TLH (and, it's very likely they source their roasted beans from here). For you folks, definitely stay loyal to your places. I would encourage, however, a once-in-a-while visit here. If six stars were available, then six would...

Order: Cappuccino, Cordato Price: $6 Pros: Really good espresso, decor (both interior and exterior) was awesome, knowledgable staff, roast their own beans Cons: Not a ton of options, they don't sweeten their Cordato unless you ask (not really bad, just different), while they do have cool outside seating you would just end up with a nice view of the prison across the road

Thoughts: The next stop in our drive to NOLA, we were pretty excited about Lucky Goat because we kept reading reviews on coffee shops that mentioned they brewed their coffee. I always like going to a place that roasts their own coffee, it seems like they are more committed to the art as a whole. There is a bit of a dissonance to their outside seating area; on one hand it the front of the building almost looks like a victorian sale house with tables and chairs all over the front porch. It would be an absolutely awesome place to sit outside and drink coffee, if it wasn’t for the giant prison directly across the road, you would be sitting on an awesome porch while staring at razor wire.

Upon walking in we were greeted with the smell of coffee and an awesome layout. They had a giant chalkboard behind the counter with an illustration of the different methods of brewing coffee, there were bags of coffee on the counters, coffee brewing supplies on the shelves, and people all around the shop doing work or just hanging out. I would have loved to sit for a while and just “chill” but unfortunately we were still trying to get to NOLA so we couldn’t stay for too long.

After perusing the store and the coffee options we settled on a cappuccino and a cordato, both of them turned out great though I was surprised that the cordito wasn’t sweetened at all. I’m used to them essentially being a cubano (along with the sugar) with added milk. After looking back at the board I saw that you could have any drink sweetened “cuban style” so I’m guessing I would have needed to add that to the order. Despite this, the quality of the espresso was very good and I could absolutely see why they were the predominant coffee provider for...