Atlanta has a rich history of Thursday night latte art throwdowns, when baristas from across the city gathered after hours to pour, compete and (more importantly) hang out together. The ATL throwdown lore goes back to 2008, when coffee pros M’lissa Muckerman and Ben Helfen brought the idea home after seeing a latte art competition at a Counter Culture training center, helping turn Atlanta’s Thursday Night Throwdowns into a beloved gathering that eventually inspired similar events around the country. That tradition built a real sense of community, and while we would never try to recreate or claim Octane’s legendary TNTs, we love what they stood for - and we, along with plenty of Atlanta coffee veterans, have tons of happy memories from those seriously fun nights. Thursday still feels like the perfect night to bring coffee people together, so to honor that history, our throwdowns will always be on Thursdays. Now we just want to help rebuild that fun community with a whole new generation of amazing baristas working in ATL - and there is some serious game out there - we're pumped!
BACK TOGETHER AGAIN
On August 6, we hosted our first latte art throwdown in a long time (we want to do approximately 4-6 per year moving forward) at our flagship Ponce City Market café - and y’all showed up. Sixteen baristas competed while DJ Grav3y spun vinyl, volunteers kept the bracket, tended bar & dishes, cheered on new friends and kept the social media updates and live video rolling. Attendees enjoyed pizza, beer, coffee pong, temporary tattoos and an extremely serious plastic-goat-counting competition. Thanks to our friends at Espresso Parts & La Marzocco for helping us spoil our competitors with prizes, and to SweetWater Brewing & PCM's Pizza Jean for great libations and slices!
JUST THE BEGINNING
Our café and screened in deck were packed, the pours were beautiful, and mostly, it just felt really good to have coffee people together having fun again. Huge congratulations to our winners Estelle Stalinscu, Sean Lumpkin and Jocelyn Leon, and an even bigger thank-you to every competitor, volunteer, sponsor and friend who helped make the night happen. We’re already dreaming up the next one -possibly a holiday throwdown complete with an Ugly Christmas Sweater contest- because we’d love to continue honoring a great Atlanta coffee tradition while creating a few new ones of our own.
GATHER. POUR. REPEAT
- Amanda Shively, Brand Experience Manager
