Kaldi's Coffee Menu Changes You Need to Know About

There are few things more integral and routine to daily lives as a morning cup of coffee. Coffee is more than just that, though. It's a meeting. It's relaxation or that extra push to get through your day. Coffee allows for people to reconnect or maybe meet for the first time.

Kaldi's has the opportunity to play a role in our guest's lives that most companies don't have. Coffee has changed and evolved a lot since our start in 1994 and so have we.

Last summer we made some changes with our first cafe in the historic DeMun neighborhood in Clayton. We renovated the inside for a better flow and modern look. We also updated our menu to better reflect our mission of creating memorable coffee experiences. That new menu introduced an added emphasis on traditional drinks such as espresso, single macchiato, 6 oz cappuccino and 8 oz latte. Our focus for the menu are drinks that allow our coffees to best be enjoyed for what they are - among the best coffees from around the world. We also kept many customer (and our) favorites on the menu. 

Over the next month, all of our cafes will be making that transition. Our Kayak's cafe was the second cafe to make the change last year. Some changes will be immediately noticeable. Our Kirkwood location will be the next to make the transition on Feb. 4th. The rest will follow shortly. 

To start, we'll have new cup sizes for our hot and cold drinks. We'll be adding a new 8 oz size for our hot drinks and serving our cold drinks in just a 16 oz size. The 20 oz hot cup will no longer be an option. 

This accomplishes a few things: 
- The larger 20 oz drinks only increased the milk on the coffee:milk ratio. Smaller sizes will result in better tasting drinks and not diluted with more milk. We want to feature our world class coffee.
- As coffee and milk prices continue to increase and fluctuate, this allows us to better control our prices which allow us to offer our drinks at the best value we can. 

Another easily apparent change will be the elimination of a bottomless cup option and our dollar refill price. This is something we have known is not a sustainable practice but have put off eliminating for as long as possible. This also applies to our promotion of filling your Kaldi's logo travel mug for $1. We're happy to offer a 'green' discount of $.20 off any drink when you bring in your own refillable container and if you bring your cup back up to the counter to buy another coffee or latte. 

We'll also be moving our drip bars behind the counter to better focus on keeping our batch brew pots filled and fresh. We realize how frustrating it is to buy your cup of coffee to only find that there is nothing left in the pot. Moving the pots to behind the counter will help to eliminate this. 

We're also adding exciting options to our menu. Each day you'll have the option of choosing from our expanded hand-brew program. Enjoy coffee brewed by hand by our speciality trained baristas to enhance our coffee's many flavor profiles. 
We feel strongly that every guest should connect to their cup of coffee or espresso drink in new & exciting ways, and yet in the way they feel most comfortable. We are continuing to offer our guest favorites: chocolate, caramel, vanilla, hazelnut, & Aztec (Mayan mocha & Aztec hot chocolate). These will be the only syrups and flavors we will continue to offer after each cafe menu transition.

(If you haven't already noticed we just debuted our new frozen menu featuring new smoothies and frozen toddys.)

The word 'sustainability' gets used so much sometimes that it often sounds like a buzzword. Coffee is traded on a commodities market just like oil, corn, and soybeans. Unlike those products, coffee can be very different in terms of quality not only just country to country but also farm to farm. Coffee is a very tedious and hands on product. Most coffee in the world is hand picked by smallholder farmers from all over the world. For coffee to meet specialty coffee standards it takes enormous effort and attention to detail. Our producer partners see their cost rising every year so we must continue to invest in them so in turn we can serve you the best coffee we possibly can everyday. We price our coffee so our producers can be sustainable today and tomorrow.  And you get to enjoy the fruit of their labor for years to come.

For us, coffee is an unending passion. We've called St. Louis home since our start in 1994. We bag and label all 500,000+ pounds of coffee we roast downtown at our Roastery near Highway 40 and Vandeventer Ave. Rather than racing to the bottom, we're racing to the top offering coffees you won't find anywhere else. These changes allow us to continue to do that.

Take a look at our new menu. Ask us questions in person in the cafes or comment below. We want to hear your thoughts.