Recently Uncommon Grounds joined forces with Battenkill Valley Creamery as a part of their “Home Delivery” initiative.

We ask, “What could be better than locally produced milk, delivered directly to your doorstep each week?”

We answer, “How about bags of the freshest coffee beans to go along with that award-winning milk!”

As pointed out by the Fun in Saratoga blog, UG coffee is another addition to an exciting array of local products which can be purchased to be delivered to you. We feel we are in good company with folks such as Rock Hill Bakehouse, Argyle Cheese Farmer and Saratoga Peanut Butter.

If you are interested in joining in on the fun, please visit Battenkill Valley Creamery’s Home Delivery page on their website to learn more. There’s a Frequently Asked Questions section which should cover all your concerns.

Cheers to local businesses banding together to serve our community with great products!

My precious....

In early May, Gizmodo ran a story announcing Bacon-flavored Torani syrup. Since we use Torani flavoring at Uncommon Grounds for our specialty espresso drinks and Italian sodas and being fervent lovers of anything having to do with bacon, we just had to get our hands on a bottle.

Obtaining this coveted Bacon Flavor proved to be more difficult than expected. Our “usual sources” turned up dry, since this flavor was apparently a very limited-edition run.

Thankfully some of our staff members were able to rouse the attention of Torani itself on Twitter. We dubbed the process of securing Bacon Flavored syrup “BaconGate2010” and are so happy to inform you that thanks to Torani, our first bottle arrived at our doorstep yesterday afternoon!

Note that the box arrived sealed with packing tape adorned with pictures of bacon along with stickers of bacon on the exterior. Not only that, but Torani included recipes AND Bacon Salt inside the package! Great customer service if you ask us!

Now, the idea of bacon flavored coffee is very divisive. It seems that most people are terrified by the thought of such a beverage.

However, we present to you that used in the correct context, Bacon-Flavored syrup is actually quite delicious!

For a (very) limited time, stop by our Saratoga Springs location and ask for a Bacon Hot Chocolate (recommended), a Bacon Mocha (recommended), a Bacon Latté (perhaps!), or a Bacon Italian Soda (hmmm… not so much). We haven’t yet tried a Bacon Frappe. Perhaps someone would like to brave that?

For a (very) limited time, Uncommon Grounds Saratoga Springs (Albany store may get a bottle to try next week) will have Bacon Torani available for any drink concoction you can think of.

There’s only one rule for this very special, limited-edition item –> No backsies! You order it, you drink it!

Chocolate! Yum!

Uncommon Grounds is pleased to announce that we will be serving Battenkill Valley Creamery Ice Cream at our Saratoga Springs, N.Y. location.

We are proud to be the first restaurant in the Capital Region to be serving Battenkill Creamery’s Ice Cream as a part of our dessert offerings.

Our first round of flavors include;
Vanilla
Chocolate
Coffee
Strawberry
Mint Chocolate Chunk
Cookie Dough

We expect to add more flavors as we phase out our gelato selections over the coming weeks.

Our staff put the ice cream through rigorous taste-testing before we decided to go ahead with it, and everyone agrees – it’s rich, creamy and delicious! Best of all – it’s made locally!

Stop on by, give it a try and let us know what you think.

Hello friends, valued customers, blog readers, humans,

Welcome to 2010!

Did you ever guess we’d make it to this decade?

On behalf of the entire Uncommon Grounds staff, we’d like to thank you for your continued support of our business over the years. We appreciate all the kind words, honest feedback and smiles we receive from you each day. This decade will see the 20th year that both of our stores have been in operation.

We look forward to many more years of serving you, your families, your friends and more.

Thank you!

( above photo by Flickr user bvcphoto. )

We are pleased to unveil our new Community Blog which has been bubbling and brewing behind closed internet doors for a few weeks.

What is this Community Blog all about?

The idea is to use this fancy, new-fangled internet thing to draw our literal community into a tighter knit “virtual community“. The main portion of the Uncommon Grounds website is all about our stores and our products, but we want this section to be all about you.

We want to highlight all the remarkable things you do, we want to archive the art that we feature each month on our walls, we want you to show us how you use our bagels and coffee at home, we want to celebrate your successes, and we want to share it with everyone else. Like a community should, right?

In addition to talking about all the great things you do we’ll be adding some coffee/tea/bagel tips, sharing some photos (on Flickr), bragging just a little bit, and generally just be here to enjoy the fun.

Please keep in mind that this is an experiment so expect surprises, left-turns, do-overs, missed edits, re-tries, and general flying by the seat of our pants-ness!

We would love to hear any and all feedback regarding this community site and the “main” Uncommon Grounds site. Please feel free to contact us by email at store (at) uncommongrounds (dot) com or by phone at (518) 227-0656.

Your ideas will fuel the magic that happens here, so please feel free to get in touch!

Stay tuned for a two-part series about how one of our customers goes from roasting our raw, green coffee beans at home to how he brews it – starting tomorrow!