Hot Dish

It's definitely the '90s--a computer-equipped cyber-cafe that sells gourmet coffee by the pound over the Internet (with some help from the guys in brown trucks). Diedrich Coffee, a California coffee bar concern that specializes in all the by-now familiar variations of varietal coffee drinks, opened its first Dallas coffee bar in the Dallas Communications Expo Center. This internet cafe is equipped with 16 terminals, the fastest server lines available, Web browsers, and the processor power to allow Diedrich javaheads to be wired while they get wired. But Diedrich's techno-ability goes back further than that--Karl Diedrich, the company's founder, owned a coffee plantation in Guatemala, and he invented the custom roaster which nearly every specialty coffeehouse now uses. (Check the label on the roaster next time you're in one of the major chains.) One of Karl's sons is in charge of the hardware--manufacturing custom roasters and coffee bins. The other son runs the coffeehouse business. Look for Diedrich cafe clones in Dallas by the end of 1997.

--Mary Brown Malouf

Diedrich Coffee at Dallas Communications Expo Coffeehouse, 5100 Belt Line Rd., Addison, (972) 774-0970