Current hours; menu; REALLY hot coffee

For the time being minimum Stumpjack hours will be:

Wed-Thu: 9-5

Fri-Sat: 9-2/5-9 (closed from 2:00-5:00)

Sun: 9-1

Mon & Tue: open by chance

This may change pretty soon depending on what I decide to do concerning the Main Street Director search and the outcome of that. Hours will also change come summer (June/July/August) when we will add hours to take advantage of the busier summer season. But for now, there you go. We'll probably be open more than this but this is the "for sure minimum." If the sidewalk sign is out and the 'OPEN' neon sign in the window is turned on, then come on in.

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I'm presently working on our food menu, revising what I can do and how best to do it. Since our staffing has changed I need to streamline that part of the operation to make it easier to handle while still making everything delicious and interesting. People have come to expect exceptional artisan menu items from Stumpjack and we want to keep meeting that expectation. I think I should be comfortable with it in another week or two.

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Dig this awesome pic of Roy Anderson breathing a wicked fireball. Roy is from Fort Lauderdale, FL, and is a martial artist & instructor, neuromuscular therapist, wadaiko performer (Japanese drumming), kickboxer, bad-ass fire performer and who knows what else. This dude is surely someone you want on your side when you're in a bar fight or just sitting round the campfire telling stories. I think Roy is the "Mr." to our favorite mermaid medusa, Marina. Anyway, check out the mug Roy is holding as he spews that monstrous ball of flame...yes, it's a Stumpjack mug! Thanks for the image, Marina!

Battle planning from the Red Hat Ladies

I’m sitting in a cozy little northern Wisconsin coffee shop right now while Kim gets ready for a job interview. It’s everything you might expect a cozy little northern Wisconsin coffee shop to be. Faux stone fireplace, a dozen small dark wood tables, a couple fat chairs and plush couch, plenty of knotty pine, unobtrusive and uninteresting music playing in the background. It would also be as quiet as a library, with only two other people tapping laptop keyboards, were it not for the three older women from Chicago sitting behind me.

They’re artsy fartsies and are talking as boisterously as well-to-do older artsy fartsy women from Chicago often seem to do. They’re talking about what’s coming up in the art scene in Chicago and about planning to meet one another for a day of art walking and girl talk. The loudest gal, clearly the leader of the trio, gets on her cell to see about rooms for others ostensibly in their gang but not here with these three. She keeps mentioning Buckingham, either the fountain or the pricey condo in Chicago, but the speed with which she speaks and the way she says it the first few times makes me think she’s cursing (“We’ll meet at the f**king hum and then head to such-and-such gallery. No, no, otherwise it’s over $400 a night. All of us at the f**king hum. First Mattise, then the f**king hum, then to the outsider art exhibit.”).

My ears perk up at the outsider reference, since that was my primary field of graduate study. So I turn around and ask them about it. We speak for a minute or two and I wish them a good time on their field trip. Listening to these gals makes me smile. They’re completely oblivious to everyone else in the cafe and are conducting their little meeting with all the seriousness of Patton, Bradley and Montgomery planning a battle in WWII.

The coffee I’m drinking, on the other hand, does not make me smile. It’s a Kenyan supposedly roasted at a medium roast level. But it tastes like it’s a very weak medium roast, with a grassy sweet/sour flavor. I just finished my cup, am licking the inside of my mouth clean of the sourness, and am going for the Ethiopian Yirgacheffe next.

This week’s StB coffee column

Here’s the link to this week’s Spill the Beans column in the local paper (Herald Times Reporter). I actually haven’t had time read through it to see if they’ve edited or cut anything. Thankfully, they usually leave it alone but every once in a while I have to make a clarification comment when they do mess with it. This one’s about coffee in Ecuador.

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