Coffee Bar

Good news: The good-coffee bandwagon just keeps rolling along. Latest to hop on board is Stouffer's Harborplace Hotel, which has just opened the Coffee Bar at Stouffer in the lobby. Stouffer will be serving coffee from Starbucks, the Seattle, Wash., company that helped make that city a coffee lover's paradise with coffee bars on every corner.Stouffer's baristas, or servers, will be trained by Starbucks to turn out such coffee beverages as espresso, cappuccino, caffe latte, and caffe almond mocha.

For a quick meal with Asian flair, Nina's is just the ticket. Billing itself as an espresso bar with a taste of the Orient, the small restaurant on the northwest corner of Centre and Calvert streets does a brisk business during the day selling coffee and takeout lunch fare. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that many of Nina's daytime customers wander over from the southeast corner of Centre and Calvert, home of The Baltimore Sun.) Nina's has extended its hours to 8 in the evening, and begun emphasizing Asian, mainly Korean, dishes on its menu.

Donna Crivello, is founder and owner of Donna's cafes and coffee bars. In addition to running a chain of restaurants, she also teaches Mediterranean cooking classes at her restaurant in Columbia. Before she opened her first coffee bar in Mount Vernon in 1992, Crivello was a teacher and a graphic designer. Since then, Donna's has grown to include five locations in the Baltimore region. 1 Santuko knives "I have a few that I keep with me when I do cooking classes, and my husband is always asking me to bring them back home.

Donna Crivello, is founder and owner of Donna's cafes and coffee bars. In addition to running a chain of restaurants, she also teaches Mediterranean cooking classes at her restaurant in Columbia. Before she opened her first coffee bar in Mount Vernon in 1992, Crivello was a teacher and a graphic designer. Since then, Donna's has grown to include five locations in the Baltimore region. 1 Santuko knives "I have a few that I keep with me when I do cooking classes, and my husband is always asking me to bring them back home.

A grocery store used to be a place to shop. Now grocers want their stores to be a place to stay. With salad bars, hot food and deli foods to go already staples of grocery offerings, chains locally and nationally are going a step further into restaurant territory by opening coffee bars in their stores, complete with pastries, sandwiches and a cozy place to sit and chat. The retailers say they are following a growing national trend of gourmet coffee shops that's too huge to ignore, and at the same time finding a new way to attract visitors and keep them a little longer.

Three stories above the mall fountain,beyond the plants and the palms,there is a segmented glass dome,whose ribs descend to form,if only in one's mind,an elongated cage,a setting better suited for canariesthan for the band of strayed sparrowsthat have found this spaceand now scurry for crumbson the floor of the coffee bar,warily dart into the fountainand through the greenery,then up, up to the dometo see the sky.ZTC

Accounting course, business plan seminar offered by SCORE SCORE Chapter 390 will conduct a one-day workshop, "Business Accounting Made Easy," from 8:45 a.m. to 2 p.m. Dec. 4 in the Chesapeake Room of Heritage Complex, 2664 Riva Road, Annapolis. Those who attend will learn how to start and maintain a balanced set of books to meet IRS requirements and how to make a business more profitable. The fee is $45. Reservations: 410-266-9553. A seminar, "Let's Prepare a Business Plan," will be held from 8:45 a.m. to 2 p.m. Dec. 10 in the Heritage Complex.

The Cactus Rose Grill in Bohager's is defunct. The popular Fells Point bar and grill decided its Southwestern menu was more trouble than it was worth. The Boathouse, Bohager's crab deck outside, has proven so popular that the steamed crab and seafood menu will be offered inside as well as out until mid-September. Then Bohager's will return to an American menu featuring a variety of finger foods and grilled items.* Donna's Restaurant, next to the coffee bar in Mount Vernon, will be open Friday and Saturday evenings only through mid-September while major renovations for a new concept (still undisclosed)

The Sir Walter Raleigh Inn in the Hunt Valley Mall closed Sunday; look for its replacement to open in the early spring. The Turtle Bay Bar and Grill will be a T.G.I. Friday's type of bar-restaurant, offering casual American food and an expanded bar.* It's getting so you can't have a bookstore without having a coffee bar in it. Greetings & Readings went so far as to enclose its sidewalk and build the G & R Espresso Cafe, what owner Steven Baum calls "a Seattle-style coffee bar." When it opens next Friday , it will offer specialty coffee drinks; all sorts of desserts, including pies and cheesecakes; bagels; scones; muffins and breakfast pastries.

Donna's at the BMA will be open for business by the beginning of next week at the latest, according to owner-chef Donna Crivello. But call the Baltimore Museum of Art's new cafe at (410) 467-3600 to make sure of the exact date; her partner Alan Hirsch insists they'll be open today.The newest Donna's, Ms. Crivello says, will have a menu that combines the best of their downtown coffee bar and their restaurant. It will be open 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday (until 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday)

Beth LaPenotiere, Since its opening May 17, branch manager Beth LaPenotiere says, the Abingdon branch of the Harford County public library system has been very busy. The library, which started with about 90,000 items and now has more than 100,000, circulated 25,002 items in its first 12 days, said LaPenotiere, who previously managed the Fallston/Jarrettsville branch. By comparison, the Aberdeen library, a branch that some Abingdon patrons used to visit, circulated 19,584 items in May, according to LaPenotiere.

Not that we'd want to be a name-dropper. But, after folks scoped out the Hippodrome's totally fab face-lift, last week's big Opening Night Gala was all about checking out who was there. Take a deep breath and dive in. Wally and Mary Ann Pinkard, Betsy Compton and Eric Grubman, Clair Zamoiski and Tommy Segal, Amy Elias, Richie Pearlstone, David Nelson, Leslie Shepard, Sue Cohen, Donald Hicken, Lynn and Tony Deering, Bill Struever, Bill Jews, Jon Kaplan, James Piper Bond, Ellen and Buddy Zamoiski, Terry and Martha Perl, John Pearson, Tom Wilcox, Paul and Dorothy Wolman, Patrick Kerins, Rebecca Hoffberger, Jonna and Fred Lazarus, Suzy Dunn, Jan and Larry Rivitz, Sarah and Steve Eisner, Jay and Sharon Smith, Henry Rosenberg Jr., Peggy and Don Hutchinson, Carey Deeley, Peter Angelos, Carole and Bean Sibel, Theo and Blanche Rodgers, Suzin Garabedian, Father Hap Ridley, Nanny Warren, Mary Kay and Chuck Nabit, Brian Lawrence, Karen Bokram, Michelle Whelley, Connie Caplan, Ellen Small and Jim Dale, P.J. Mitchell, Adrian Harpool, Margaret and Dick Himmelfarb, Sandy Apgar and son Clayton, Cindy Conklin and Bob Merbler.

The holidays are long gone, and winter seems like it will last forever. What we need, right this very minute, is something to get us through January: the darkest, gloomiest, coldest month of the year. We need some little comforts -- some warm, snuggly things to soothe our bodies and cheer our souls. We're not talking about little luxuries here. We need puffy down quilts, not silk sheets. Potatoes whipped with butter and cream, not caviar. In other words, things that will help us hibernate happily until the first tiny crocuses poke their heads through the snow, and spring is at least a possibility again.

Even my daydreams seem to irritate people. Recently, I wrote that I shared actress Jodie Foster's fantasy about landing a job at a Starbucks coffee shop, where our worries would end with our shifts. I said that I understood her wish not to be in charge of anything important, save the amount of foam on top of a cappuccino, and I added that the unyielding responsibilities of raising children made it that much more exhausting to be in charge of stuff at work, too. A couple of women wrote to say they knew exactly what I meant.

The One World Cafe Express in the Can Company has become the Kiss Cafe. Right now, it's still a coffee bar with pastries, wraps, soups and salads. But starting in April, big changes are in store. The Canton cafe will offer billiards and start serving liquor. It will also be more of a restaurant when new chef Jane Parker comes on board. She'll introduce her tapas menu April 5 and a dinner menu April 15. (Entrees such as chicken, fish and boeuf bourguignon will run from $7 to $14.) The Kiss Cafe is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. Los Primos is Latino with a Caribbean accent Upper Fells Point already has a number of Latino restaurants; now there's a new one. Restaurant Los Primos has arrived at 223 S. Broadway with Caribbean specialties like goat stew and pork with plantains.

Accounting course, business plan seminar offered by SCORE SCORE Chapter 390 will conduct a one-day workshop, "Business Accounting Made Easy," from 8:45 a.m. to 2 p.m. Dec. 4 in the Chesapeake Room of Heritage Complex, 2664 Riva Road, Annapolis. Those who attend will learn how to start and maintain a balanced set of books to meet IRS requirements and how to make a business more profitable. The fee is $45. Reservations: 410-266-9553. A seminar, "Let's Prepare a Business Plan," will be held from 8:45 a.m. to 2 p.m. Dec. 10 in the Heritage Complex.

Noodley thingsAt first glance Suzie's Soba, the new noodle shop in the Belvedere lower lobby, looks about as trendy as you can get, what with its cute little sandwich board outside, flashy neon sign and menu that promises "curly, twisty and noodley things." (Those noodley things include various Asian pasta dishes, homemade ramen and even kugel for dessert.) But underneath it's still a nice little coffee shop -- the Cozy Corner that was -- so you can also get very American sandwiches, salads and breakfast six days a week.

Somebody's always got another spot in mind for Donna Crivello, who is not just a woman but also a brand name. One friend envisions a Donna's coffee bar/cafe in Columbia, another suggests Philadelphia, another Dupont Circle in Washington, or maybe Annapolis. Somebody calls and wonders if the caffe latte and black T-shirt routine might adapt to a Mexican sports bar.Limits, she says, there must be limits."I don't want to feel like we're just multiplying," says Ms. Crivello. Franchise? Forget it: "I don't want to worry about a Donna's in Dallas."

A grocery store used to be a place to shop. Now grocers want their stores to be a place to stay. With salad bars, hot food and deli foods to go already staples of grocery offerings, chains locally and nationally are going a step further into restaurant territory by opening coffee bars in their stores, complete with pastries, sandwiches and a cozy place to sit and chat. The retailers say they are following a growing national trend of gourmet coffee shops that's too huge to ignore, and at the same time finding a new way to attract visitors and keep them a little longer.

When fast-growing Metro Food Markets opens its newest Baltimore-area supermarket in Cockeysville next month, shoppers will find familiar touches: sushi and rotisserie chicken, a Provident Bank of Maryland and workers in trademark yellow hats.But shoppers will also find workers clad in trendy black outfits serving up biscotti, cappuccino and roasted vegetables at Donna's Coffee Bar across from the deli.The two Baltimore-area chains have teamed up to bring express versions of Donna's Coffee Bar and Cafe to new Metro supermarkets, a move designed to help each branch out by capitalizing on a growing trend of putting grocery stores and eateries under one roof.