Blathr Wayne Lorentz

PJʼs Coffee is one of New Orleansʼ hometown brews. Itʼs basic, but has the virtues of being consistent, pleasant, and ubiquitous. Food offerings seem to vary widely from store to store, but a bit of hyper-local flavor is a good thing.

A lot of people compare it to Starbucks, but itʼs a different animal. Itʼs more akin to Peetʼs Coffee, or a better grade of Dunkinʼ Donuts.

PJʼs is also one of the very few coffee companies that sells beans specifically for cold brew. It has the virtues of being consistent, pleasant, and in my refrigerator.

CCʼs Coffee House is another local slinger of joe in Louisiana. The “C” and the other “C” stand for “Community Coffee,” the Baton Rouge company from which this small chain originated. So, really the full name is “Community Coffee's Coffee House,” which entirely fails to roll off the tongue.

CCʼs is good, and the Pelican State could use more of them. Itʼs a reliable cuppa, and the cafes I visited are both spacious and low-pressure.

Since theyʼre both local, itʼs natural to compare CCʼs Coffee with PJʼs Coffee. CCʼs is perhaps a scosh below P.J.ʼs in terms of flavor, but while P.J. seems to aspire to replicating the Starbucks proliferation model, CCʼs has a serious local vibe. Even its drinks have names like Mochasippi, embracing its location in a way that PJʼs only does in a token fashion, like offering café au lait. Even Dunkinʼ can do that.

I did purchase beans from CCʼs, and they were unremarkable. Not bad. Not good. Diner grade coffee, if thatʼs what youʼre into.