85 Degrees Celsius (pardon me if I don't use the ° from here on out), local Asian bakery and unstoppable juggernaut was featured in an NPR story a few weeks ago (yes, this post is a bit late on reporting on the report), but the piece by Neda Ulaby for Morning Edition is still worth a listen if you didn't hear it on the way to work on June 8th.
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The newsy part of the story is about how the Taiwanese company has
been using its flagship US store in Irvine as a testing ground for its sea
salt coffee among other things. All to get ready for their planned IPO
later this year. It also stated that the company is slated to open a
second bakery in Hacienda Heights.
What won't be new to you is the part about how successful the place
has been from the very beginning. Just this weekend, I saw that
perpetual line, which was no shorter than when the bakery first opened
almost two years ago.
As for its plans to compete with Starbucks? I wish them luck. Though I'm sure I won't be the first to
regard the place as a bakery first, a coffee joint a
distant second.
Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.