Old California Coffee House & Eatery has done it again with the amazing new Chicken Chipotle Ciabatta Sandwich. It’s served Hot out of the oven on ciabatta bread with our homemade spicy chipotle chili in adobe sauce with grilled chicken, red onion, red bell peppers, provolone cheese, spinach and tomato. It’s an amazing flavor combination with a little kick. Yes, it is a little spicy, a little crunchy, a little cheesy and with the freshness of spinach and tomato, it makes the flavor combinations pop in your mouth.

At Old Cal Coffee in San Marcos Ca, we’ve been very proud of the new menu items and food quality that we’ve been producing. The New Chicken Chipotle Ciabatta is just one of those new Menu Items we’ve put on the menu and is selling like crazy!

Another thing that we are very proud of is our kitchen and the time that it takes to get your food out. Our goal is to get the food to you within 10 -15 minutes of you ordering, but allow for up to 20 minutes on the weekends when we get slammed. Old California Coffee House & Eatery is very proud of Miss Veronica, our chef, who has done an amazing job with the running of the kitchen! One thing I can guarantee you is that she will always produce a perfect product that she is proud of. I’ve never seen someone take so much pride in her work and the end result is the Old Cal Coffee Customers will receive a great product! Thank you Miss Veronica! You’re Amazing!

The US Commerce Association has chosen Old California Coffee House & Eatery for
the 2013 San Marcos Awards in the Best Restaurant classification.

Nationally, fewer than 1% (1 in 120) of the 2013 Awards were certified as
Three-Time awardees. For most companies, this recognition is a result of your
dedication and efforts as well as the work of others in your organization that
have helped build your business. Your team is now a part of an exclusive group
of small businesses that have achieved this selection.

The US Commerce Association provides several ways for you to leverage your
company’s accomplishment. First, you may use the digital award image from this
email in any of your online marketing.

Also, the press release with the Old California Coffee House & Eatery official
Three-Time award announcement is on our website and available for your use. The
US Commerce Association gives Old California Coffee House & Eatery the right to
distribute and display the digital award image and/or press release in any way
you choose.

Finally, you may also receive a personalized award for you and your staff to showcase in your workplace. This is a great way to keep your employees motivated and impress your customers.

Each year, across the greater San Marcos area, the US Commerce Association chooses only the best local businesses. We focus on companies that have demonstrated their ability to use various marketing methods to grow their business in spite of difficult economic times. The companies chosen exemplify the best of small business; often leading through customer service and community involvement.

Click   here to view the 2013 San Marcos Awards.

Respectfully,

Taylor James
US Commerce Association

2013 AWARD NOTICE!

Congratulations are in order for the entire Old California Coffee House & Eatery team for earning the Talk of the Town Customer Satisfaction Award once again in 2013!!!

To:      Craig Garcia Old California Coffee House & Eatery

 2013 Star Rating Earned: 5

Congratulations on this special award recognizing your extraordinary customer service during the past year. We are honored to present you with the 2013 Talk of the Town Customer Satisfaction Award. Only the highest rated businesses have been chosen to receive this award presented by Talk of the Town News and Celebration Media U.S. To win in consecutive years is exceptional. As a prior winner, you know the award was created to showcase companies that excel in serving their customers and earning their high ratings. Your 2013 Star Rating: 5 STAR

For more than five years, we have helped businesses grow their reputations while connecting consumers to the top-rated businesses. In 2012, we had more than one million page views on our website, and the number is growing exponentially.

Last year Old California Coffee House & Eatery celebrated the Talk of Town 2010, 2011 & 2012 award. This was Old California Coffee House & Eatery’s 3rd year in a row winning this award.  Every year we ask our winners to provide feedback on how we can help them grow even further. In response to those recommendations, we are presenting you with a free star page, which now includes space to place a 250-character message to consumers as well as links to your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. You can even post videos from YouTube!

In addition to our award plaques, certificates, press releases and window decals for you to proudly display at Old California Coffee House & Eatery, you may also display vehicle magnets with the 2013 winner logo and professionally written, edited and designed company profiles with full-color, glossy reprints for your collateral marketing needs. The company profile showcases your accomplishments while providing consumers with an inside glimpse into your products and services.

Congratulations for making a difference in your community. We are happy to provide Old California Coffee House & Eatery with the products and services to further help you post the results of your award. Spread the word, you’ve earned it.

Talk of the Town News
Where the Stars in Customer Satisfaction Shine…
32000 Northwestern Hwy., Suite 128, Farmington Hills, MI  48334
www.talkofthetownnews.com

Old California Coffee House & Eatery in San Marcos California has done it again…. creating another new vegetarian food item on the vegetarian menu that is out of this world delicious! Just look at those fresh mushrooms, fresh tomato, fresh spinach and onions…. Yummy! Yes, the Veggie Cheese Pizza is new and adds another hot vegetarian food item to the menu. As we continue to expand the vegetarian food menu, we wanted to make another product that just “Wow”ed the vegetarian community. At Old California Coffee House & Eatery, we believe that a vegetarian dish, shouldn’t just consist of rabbit food.. ie lettuce and carrots. We feel that we should accommodate our vegetarian guests with real products, real food, made from scratch with our very own homemade recipes. This Pizza is brand new and is gaining popularity very fast

The BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich is brand new at Old California Coffee House & Eatery in San Marcos California. It has quickly become a fan favorite among many of the employees and regular customers. We start with our slow roasted marinated Pork Shoulder and add our Sweet BBQ Sauce to it. We then give a generous portion of BBQ Pulled Pork. Then we add the secret ingredient, our homemade coleslaw, that gives this BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich an amazing taste. There are several secrets to our coleslaw recipe that makes it taste so fresh, crisp and delicious. First, we don’t make the coleslaw until the first BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich is ordered for the day. Then, we only make small batches at a time, so the cabbage isn’t sitting in its own sauces getting soggy all day. Lastly, we make our homemade coleslaw with carrots, bell peppers and cucumbers, which keeps the coleslaw crisp, instead of wet and soggy. Secret Tip: We use very little mayo, I mean very little… We use another ingredient to make the ingredients wet, not soggy and it has a sweet flavor to it too. Again, if Old California Coffee House & Eatery is going to put something new on the menu, it had better WOW our audience and this product does exactly that… Come on in and try our brand new BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich with Homemade Coleslaw! We know you’ll love it Happy Eating.

This is a flavor combination that will “WOW” you…

The Mediterranean is a New Vegetarian Sandwich served at Old California Coffee House & Eatery in Restaurant Row in San Marcos Ca. We are very excited about this new vegetarian sandwich because the flavors from The Mediterranean are amazing! We start off with our famous homemade Roasted Bell Pepper Hummus, we add Kalamata Olives for a little punch of flavor, top it with Red Bell Peppers & Cucumbers for a little crunch, we finish it with Spinach and Tomatoes.  We use squaw bread, which has a hint of molasses and oats, which really brings out the flavor of the Mediterranean and then we add our secret ingredient that completes this sandwich, which is our homemade Tzatziki sauce on the other side of the bread. We use Tzatziki instead of Mayo because the Tzatziki sauce with yogurt and garlic enhances the flavor of the New Mediterranean Sandwich better than anything else we’ve created at Old California Coffee House and Eatery in San Marcos Ca.

Come in and try this NEW AMAZING Sandwich! We know you’ll LOVE it….

Take a look at the picture above. You get one banana, a cup of strawberries and it is topped of with either blueberries, blackberries or raspberries. We know you will love this fresh bowl of fruit.

The next new product is our Berry Parfait. The new Berry Parfait is basically the same thing as the Berry Banana Bowl, with the addition of Yogurt and Granola. The New Berry Parfait will look like this picture, underneath the yogurt and granola is the banana and all the berries.

As part of the executive committee for Restaurant Row, Old California Coffee House & Eatery is committed to being part of the community. It is our pleasure to sponsor this event so we can bring you good clean fun & family entertainment that won’t cost you a dime!

Kids 12 and Under, accompanied by an adult, are invited to pick up a FREE Easter Treasure Map at the Easter Bunny Photo Booth behind Old California Coffee House & eatery. Stop by each restaurant to have it stamped! Then return it to the photo booth to receive a FREE Eater Gift Bag filled with candy & goodies.

Mom & Dad are invited to pick up a Restaurant booklet filled with coupons, specials and more valuable information about our restaurants here at Old Cal Restaurant Row in San Marcos California.

It is sure to be lots of fun. Dress up & our Photographer will take your picture and email them to you. However, you are welcome to bring your own camera too!

Have you been in this week  to Old California Coffee House & Eatery in San Marcos Ca? If so, you may have noticed our New Spring 2013 Food Menu is out and we are so happy and so proud to bring you amazing new products. We believe you will LOVE the “NEW” Food Menu Items along with our New “Make it a Meal” deal that will give you a huge plate of food!

Above is a picture of our Hot Roast Beef with Au Jus Sauce as a Meal… We are now offering our famous homemade vegan chili with cheddar and onions, our brand NEW homemade coleslaw and our brand NEW homemade cornbread for an additional $3.50 to any Hot Food, Sandwich or Vegetarian Menu Item…. (That’s a lot of food for LESS than the price of a cup of soup) and trust me on the coleslaw… It’s really good with a sweet crunch to it… not some soggy mayonaisey mess…

Our homemade vegan chili has beans, a little Cheyenne pepper to give it a little kick and textured vegetable protein, so it tastes just like real meat. We’ve had several people come up to us and say that they ordered the vegan chili, but there is meat in there… No there is not…. that’s part of our secret to making it taste so good! Our Vegan Chili is a dish that meat lovers and vegetarians alike can eat the same meal and love it…

One thing we thought that would go well with our homemade vegan chili was homemade cornbread. The challenge in making a good cornbread is to make sure that it stays moist. Cornbread is traditionally a dry bread as it uses corn meal and flour as the main base ingredients. We add a little butter and honey to our recipe to give it a little sweetness and to hold in the moisture. We bake it in the oven in a 9×9 pan and cut it into 9 squares, so each piece is a good size piece of cornbread.

Our homemade coleslaw is a recipe that we created that has a sweet crunch to it. Our goal was to make a product that people would talk about. One thing we disliked about the traditional coleslaw recipes is that many recipes produce a mayonnaise based coleslaw that turns into a soggy wet mess. In order to combat the soggy wet mess syndrome, we added bell peppers, cucumbers, carrots and cabbage to the coleslaw in order to allow the product to stay crisp and we only use a half a cup of mayo for every pound and a half of dry mixture.

To see our complete Food Menu, Go Here:
http://www.oldcalcoffee.com/FoodMenu.html

At Old California Coffee House & Eatery in San Marcos, Ca, we have been working hard to improve the food menu. This year is no exception with our best food menu ever! Don’t worry, most of the menu remains unchanged with a few awesome additions. New items for 2013 will include a brand new BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich topped with homemade coleslaw, a Veggie Cheese Pizza, Homemade Quiche (Ham & Vegetarian) with salad, The Mediterranean (Vegetarian) and our homemade cornbread. We are very proud of these New Menu items because they are our family recipes and they are delicious.

Once we added the Homemade Ham, Spinach & Mushroom Quiche to the menu, we realized the benefits of adding fresh mushrooms to the menu would greatly improve the taste of many of our other products. You now have the ability to add fresh mushrooms to your Morning Scramble and bagel-which. Since we now have fresh mushrooms, we thought about what other menu item could I create that utilized the fresh mushrooms and we came up with our Veggie Cheese Pizza.

The Veggie Cheese Pizza is an amazing product. We took our garlic tandora flat bread and added three cheeses, fresh mushrooms, fresh spinach, tomato and onions and created the brand new Veggie Cheese Pizza! It’s amazing.

Next, we started thinking about our famous vegan chili, which tastes like it has ground meat in it, but it doesn’t. We wanted to have some homemade cornbread to go with our chili, so we pulled out our famous cornbread recipe and made a batch. After a few attempts, we nailed it…. At no additional charge, we now serve homemade cornbread with butter with our already famous homemade vegan chili.

Once we put the BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich with the homemade coleslaw on the menu, we were very excited because we wanted to create something special with the coleslaw other than just on the new BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich! We started thinking about how we could utilize the new homemade coleslaw and homemade cornbread, so we created a meal to our hot food and sandwiches by adding our famous vegan chili with homemade cornbread and homemade coleslaw to the plate! Now you have a feast for meal!

Here’s Our Number #1 Sandwich… The Backyard Club as a meal… We are pretty sure you won’t be hungry after putting that plate of food away! Enjoy

To see our complete Food Menu, Go Here:
http://www.oldcalcoffee.com/FoodMenu.html

A  lot has changed over the years, but one thing remains the same, we are still committed to providing the  finest quality locally roasted coffee & freshest ingredients for our food menu.  We’ve added a more diverse food menu with many vegetarian and “vegan” selections.  There are plenty of seats both inside and outside. From comfortable of sofas and chairs to lounge in to the large study table to the outdoor patio seating with sun or shaded areas, we’re sure you’ll find a comfortable spot to enjoy your day. We have become the local hot spot for business  professionals and students alike. We light the fire pits daily at dusk which is perfect for cozy gatherings or a group meeting. Don’t forget… on Friday and Saturday nights, we have live music from local entertainers outside on the patio.

Our Goal is to preserve the legacy  of the coffee house as a place of community – a place to meet friends, hang out  and relax, have stimulating conversations, listen to music, read, study, draw,  write poetry, meet with business associates, enjoy the local flavor and have  some great coffee and eats.

Hope you will make Old California Coffee House & eatery in San Marcos Ca your  daily choice.

On Friday, Feb 22nd 2013, the Jon Ji Jazz Band played to a packed house at Old California Coffee House & Eatery in San Marcos Ca. Jon, the lead singer and guitarist accompanied by stand up bass player Rich Wright and drummer RJ Perillo were on point tonight as they have never sounded better! If you’re a fan of Jazz music, then The Jon Ji Jazz Band is an incredible musical act you should follow. I’ve had the privilege of following the band for the past two years and I am a big fan of their music.

Even though it was a cold night, the guys played on and the crowd hung in there to every note as they played through the cold, yet still sounded amazing! I received many compliments that night from my customers, but one comment that stood out was from a gal named Stephanie who asked if we had live music every Friday night and I told her that we had live music every Friday & Saturday night at Old Cal Coffee in San Marcos, she went on to say how much she enjoyed the evening and how it made the night very pleasant. She said she will definitely be back and that Old California Coffee House was her hang out from now on….

Thanks to the Jon Ji Jazz Band, I have customers coming back again and again. Another customer came up to me tonight and told me the only reason they were at Old California Coffee House & Eatery in San Marcos Ca was because Jon and the guys were playing there. I also know of many other groups that came out that night to support The Jon Ji Jazz Band, which makes me very happy. Any venue would be happy to have this band at their facility. You can find Jon and his band playing at Old Cal Coffee about once a month. Check our Calendar at http://www.oldcalcoffee.com/phpEventCalendar/index.php to see when they will be back. Hope to see you out at old Cal Coffee in San Marcos Ca supporting & enjoying some of the best local music in San Diego!

Congratulations to Morgan Leigh who tried out for American Idol this year and made it through to Hollywood Week! Once in Hollywood, the judges start out by having you sing their solo and they immediately send half the people home! Morgan stood up there and nailed it. The judges sent her though immediately! The TV show aired on Wednesday Feb 13th and this week was extra special as Morgan made it through the first set of cuts.

With half the people already sent home, they make the remaining contestants form groups and practice all night long, so they can be ready to perform their choreographed song in the morning. Morgan, being such a good singer and the sweetest girl you have ever met, had no problem with the group performance! Their entire group nailed their performance and the judges sent all four of them through to the next round. This was so cool because the TV crew interviewed all four girls after their performance and they showed it on TV. They also showed Morgan talking about the group performances before the performance, during her performance and after her performance! It was an amazing night for Morgan Leigh as she got massive TV air time with her speaking and singing.

Congratulations again Morgan Leigh. We are so proud of you! While her journey ended after the group performance, we are so proud of Morgan for making it to the top 40 girls in America! At Old California Coffee House & Eatery in San Marcos Ca, we are so proud of Morgan and we can’t wait to hear her sign again at the coffee shop next month! Look for the Morgan Leigh band to be touring all over Southern California for the next several months. One of those performances can be seen at Old California Coffee House & Eatery in San Marcos Ca on March 23rd, 2013.

It’s been about a year since I’ve had the privilege of having the Fandango band back to perform live music at Old California Coffee House & Eatery in San Marcos Ca. They returned in fine fashion too, not skipping a beat at all since the last time I had seen them perform. After pestering Bob about a hundred times to get the guys in the band back at Old Cal Coffee, he finally agreed. You see, Fandango is an amazing band with great musicians who can play anywhere they want & any venue would be happy to have them. So, a very special thank you goes out to Bob, Jackson & Smokey for coming to Old Cal Coffee to tear it up!

It was a cold February evening, but the crowd came out to see this amazing band. I really enjoyed their performance with Bob and Jackson on lead vocals and Smokey on bass and back up vocals, these guys sound amazing. Sometimes it is hard to tell who is the lead singer, because when Bob sings, you know he is fronting the band as he stands center stage with Smokey on his left and Jackson on his right. But when Jackson sings, you would think he was the lead singer as he is tearing it up with sweet sounding vocals that only he has…. I can’t wait to hear them play again! Stay tuned to our music calendar, because I am hoping to have these guys back in a few months.

At Old California Coffee House & Eatery in San Marcos Ca, we have live music every Friday & Saturday Night from 7 to 10 pm. As the new owners of Old Cal Coffee, Since Jan 17th 2011, we have put on over 200 live music performances from all types of genres. Above is Two of us Plus One, a country & Willie Nelson Cover Band that plays at Old Cal about every 6-8 weeks. Old California Coffee House & Eatery has an outdoor music venue with seating around the fire pits and under the patio cover. Unless it raining outside or we have stormy weather, the show will go on.

Here is Blue Mountain Mule playing their Bluegrass Music at Old Cal Coffee. Since taking over Old Cal Coffee a couple of years ago, we have put on over 200 live music shows and counting. We are very fortunate to have great weather for our outdoor venue and so many amazing bands here in San Diego to choose from! take a look at some of the pictures from past shows…

We’ve had every kind of band playing just about every kind of music including American Idol Contestants Morgan Leigh, who fronts the Morgan Leigh Band and Paul Cannon, who fronts The Paul Cannon Band. Paul’s career is now taking off as he has now played with The Dunwells & Tristan Prettyman… From Country to Bluegrass from Folk to Classic Rock, From up and coming bands to local favorites, Old Cal Coffee will have the best live music every Friday & Saturday night.

Here’s a band to watch out for this year…. it’s a band called Serenade & Strum and it is lead by lead singers Jen & Benji Horning… An amazing band with soulful jazzy voice that I just can’t get enough of… Check
out music calendar for more information about these and many other awesome bands that play live music at Old California Coffee House &Eatery in San Marcos Ca.

It may not seem like a huge deal that are now offering homemade cornbread with our chili, however, we are not raising the price. All we are doing is adding something special to an already popular product to make it even better! We hope you will come in and try our homemade vegan chili with our home made cornbread. It’s Delicious!

To see our complete Food Menu, Go Here: http://www.oldcalcoffee.com/FoodMenu.html

Our Baker came to me and said the Banana Nut Bread is selling like a brush fire on a windy Summer’s day, but the coffee cake is not moving as much. I immediately went to the display case and grabed the product and did a taste test. The Coffee Cake was amazing, there is no reason why this product shouldn’t be selling as well as the banana nut bread, if not even better. Then I compared them side by side and I figured out why??? The banana nut bread was twice the size as the coffee cake, for the same money… No wonder… So I immediately went to my partner Giovanna and told her I wanted to double the size of the Coffee Cake and she said go for it… So I did and now…. we can’t keep it in the case because It sells out everyday!

Take a look at this huge piece of coffee cake. Due to the populatarity of our baked goods, we now bake a batch or two just about everyday! It is soft, moist and delicious! If you’re hungry and need a quick bite for the road, then try the new coffee cake! It comes highly recommneded by me.

Ever since her debut on American idol, this girl, now young lady, has been pursuing her music career by playing gigs all aroundSouthern California! She has a huge following of local fans as well as other musicians who get an opportunity to open for her as she tours around the greaterSan Diegoarea. With her hit songs Runaway love, Sugar, Take Time and New Shoes, she is sure to be huge success! Whatever happens, one thing is for sure, Morgan is one the sweetest girls you will ever know! We wish you the best of luck and hope you make it BIG in the music industry! We love you and we are so proud of you!

The next band is another local band with the lead singer by the name of Jennifer Horning, leads the 7 piece band Serenade & Strum, is full of amazing local talent including her husband Benji Horning on guitar and vocals along with the King’s, aka lizzy King on Keyboards and Nate King on drums, this band is going places! When you hear the sweet soulful voice of Jennifer horning, you will be amazed at how good this gal really is. A soulful, jazzy voice that I can listen to all night long, she packs the house with fans that just can’t get enough of their music too. Their new album Head West young Man with hit new songs walls and Fire in my heart are sure to make you tap your toes and sing along. Keep an eye on this band before they start selling out the Valley View Arena and you can’t get tickets.

There is so much great local talent inSan Diego, I feel very lucky and blessed to have some of the hottest acts playing at Old Cal Coffee in San Marcos Ca. It isn’t always easy, but Old Cal Coffee is committed to having live music every Friday & Saturday night and bringing you the very best talentSan Diegohas to offer.

We made the decision to carry Almond Milk because our customers were asking for it. With a growing concern for some people who do not want to have too much soy, Almond Milk is a great alternative. We use the original flavored Almond Milk because we don’t want it too sweet. With our specialty drinks already being sweet, we felt that it would be too sweet for many people if chose a flavored almond milk. Besides, you can always sweeten the drinks up, you can’t go the other way once you’ve added too much sweetener.

We hope that this decision makes many of our customers happy

On December 24th, Christmas Eve at 6 pm, we closed the coffee shop so our employees can enjoy Christmas with their families. However, for the owners, this was the only time where we could steam clean all the couches, chairs and pillows and have them dry for business the following day. Since we only close two times a year, Thanksgiving and Christmas, we don’t get a lot of time to spend on maintenance… This year, we took full advantage of the day off.

I was able to rent this amazing carpet/steam cleaner and went through the entire coffee shop with a fine tooth comb. I cleaned the all the couches, all the pillows and all the chairs. It took me over two hours and my back was killing me when I was finished, but it was worth it. I wanted to start the new year off right. I want our place to be immaculate when the customers walk in. This building is old, it has a lot of character and it is clean! We are proud of this place and want to make it the best for our patrons!

After a couple of hours of hard work steam cleaning the fabric, it was time to work on the espresso machine. The espresso machine is the lifeblood of the coffee shop. We sell thousands of shots of espresso each week and taking down the espresso machine during business hours is simply out of the question. Since we were already there, I knew this was my chance to maintenance the espresso machine. After turning it off and letting it cool, I took it apart and discovered the reason we were losing pressure on the right hand side steam wand. Several turns of the wrenches, completely dismantling the wand from the water tank, I took everything apart, cleaned it and replaced a couple of parts and we now have this running at maximum capacity. While I was in there, I replaced the right wand as well. So the pressure on both sides is perfect, everything is functional and working perfectly. This should result in faster service when making several drinks at the same time!

Meanwhile, Giovanna was hard at work changing out the front register. If you have ever been there and we had to tell you we are rebooting the register, you probably had to wait 3 to 5 minutes for the thing to come back online. With our computer background, we are able to handle almost anything thrown our way with regards to computers, so switching out the register was a breeze for Giovanna. After several months of trouble shooting the register from the manufacturer, they finally decided to send us a new unit. Of course, all the data had to be backed up, computer switched out, data restored and system tested. We are crossing our fingers that the new register will be stable. Rebooting our register when there is a line can really cause a problem!

After all the hard work done on Christmas Eve, We are ready for business. we had better be ready because our next day of closing won’t be until Thanksgiving in November of 2013!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!