I was sitting on a bench eating bagels with my kids and Nancy [Rommelmann] walked by… I introduced myself and asked if she needed pastries for Ristretto.

Kim and I first played the LA name-game, and then I said, I’d love to try her stuff. I asked her to do some baking for Ristretto based on her fantastic pastry, and her gorgeous book, Good to the Grain: Baking with Whole-Grain Flours. I was leafing through it one Sunday at the Williams cafe and happened to read her bio… which was when I learned she’d been at Spago and Campanile (the latter, my very favorite restaurant ever). I had had no idea; she’d never made a peep about this. I called Din and said, “This is like having Frank Sinatra ask if he can sing us a few songs.”

Kim will be doing all the baking at both cafes, beginning this Saturday. She will be adding lots of items, depending on what seasonal ingredients strike her fancy and what she wants to create. She pretty much has free reign, and right now, to me, the pastry cases look like jewel boxes. Come by often to see what she’s making, and in the meantime, I have three words for you: apricot crumble bars - NR

Caffeine content of each KA-POW! square is 12 mg. Whole bar (8 squares) has less caffeine than a cup of brewed coffee and enters the bloodstream slowly, but when it hits, KA-POW!

KA-POW! Bar, made with Ristretto Roasters Ethiopian Sidamo Guji - $5. Available at the cafes

We got excited about our new space all over again when we saw these images by Ristretto barista and photographer Dylan Long. If having such a beautiful space makes artists like Dylan want to work here, we must be doing something right.

We’ve just opened our new flagship cafe & coffee lab at 3808 N. Williams Ave. Affectionately referred to during the construction process by friends and well-wishers as “Son of Ristretto,” the new shop is more than mere offspring–think of it as the Bionic Ristretto–bigger, stronger, faster, smarter.

The quality of the coffee will be the same as always, and we’ll continue to roast it all by hand, in our vintage Probat roaster, a process you can still witness daily in our original Beaumont Village Cafe & Roastery. But now you will be able to enjoy a cup of Ristretto close to downtown and the Rose Quarter, in a new bright and spacious setting designed by the inestimable Holst Architecture.

Our new shop is located in The Hub, where our neighbors include Yoga Shala, Ink & Peat, Lincoln, Nutshell and Pix Patisserie among others.