8/13/2023 0 Comments Atomic coffee barMinoru Matoba and his wife Ito both hailed from the northern states - Minoru from Whitefish, Montana, Ito from Kemmerer, Wyoming. Perhaps she just doesn't need any physical monument to her memories - "I don't believe in illusions 'cos too much is real," as her favorite singer John Lydon once sang - since she experienced it all firsthand. "I'm gonna be honest, it was so creepy playing in there and spinning those records."īut Sekizawa clearly does care about the Atomic Cafe and its legacy, which she proudly carries on by sometimes resurrecting the Atomic Nancy persona as a DJ. "I don't give a shit," she said, perhaps showing a bit of stubborn defiance left over from her punk past. Months later when asked about the event and the impending demolition of the building, Sekizawa seemed relieved. This evening she took center stage in that same room for the very last time, as the featured DJ, spinning those dusty old 45s from the famous Atomic jukebox. Atomic Nancy, the "kabuki kind of punk girl" who presided over the circus-like vibe of the cafe during its heyday, jumping across tables in rollerskates and slinging bowls of noodles to the rowdy customers in red naugahyde booths. Organized by the Little Tokyo Service Center, this event was kind of a last hurrah for Nancy Sekizawa, a.k.a. Much of the conversation centered around the Atomic Cafe, which occupied the building for almost three decades and best known as an after-hours hangout for the local punks and weirdos in the '80s. Last February a large crowd gathered inside the building (now a branch of local chain Senor Fish) to honor its legacy. This may be good news from an urbanist perspective - but what about the history? Should we be paving over a precious link to the past in the name of progress? The century-old building will be replaced by a new Metro subway stop, slated to become a major transportation hub that will transform the way we travel through downtown. When news spread about the demolition of the old brick building at First and Alameda Streets in Little Tokyo, it was a sign that the city had committed itself to the future. “This has really helped keep us organized, and keeps our team knowing exactly what their role is during each part of the day.Owner Ito Matoba with a customer at Atomic Cafe “Basically we look at production being everything from cooling bin to sealed bag, and fulfillment is making sure that each bag makes it to its proper home, whether a local market, cafe,” Spencer Mahoney, whose brother Logan heads sales for the company, said. The company began roasting its own beans inside the original shop with a Diedrich IR-7 roaster in 2001 before eventually spinning off the Atomic Coffee Roasters brand and investing in an IR-24.Ĭatering to ever-growing demand, Atomic now boasts two identical 4,000-square-foot rooms inside the new production headquarters - one for production roasting and one for fulfillment. The wide open space at the Peabody location allowed the business to reinvent production flow for the family-run roasting business, which grew out of the original Atomic Cafe brand, opened by two brothers with a single location in 1996. In Boston, the Sun Also Rises with Night Shift RoastingĪero Coffee Roasters Rolls Into Retail Roastery and Bakery Outside Boston “We were always working within the confines of our small Salem footprint, and we really stretched that square footage for all it was worth.”Ģ1 New Coffee Shops This Year: Eastern United States “In 2020 we really maxed out the capacity of both our roaster and the production space, and so we started a plan to buy a new roaster and find a landing spot for it,” Atomic Coffee Roasters VP of Operations Spencer Mahoney recently told Daily Coffee News. In total, the capital outlay for the new roastery cost the Atomic team about $2 million, a substantial investment that was precipitated by consistent growth that maxed out its previous 2,000-square-foot roasting space in nearby Salem. Within that time frame, the Atomic team installed a garage door and opened two walls to make way for the roaster, while replacing the bounce house’s former “cosmic” carpeting with suitable production flooring and other interior renovations. Production at the 10,000-square-foot roastery officially began last summer following a tight turnaround between getting the keys to the former Boston Bounce location in Peabody, Massachusetts, and the arrival of the hulking new machine 26 days later. Inside a former bouncy house complex outside Boston, coffee beans now bounce around the drum of a Diedrich CR-70 roaster recently obtained by Atomic Coffee Roasters. All images courtesy of Atomic Coffee Roasters. The Diedrich IR-70 inside the new Atomic Coffee Roasters roastery in Peabody, Massachusetts.
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