Mugshots: Solid Food and Coffee, No Misdemeanors

If you google "mugshots," the first thing that comes up are the mugshots on www.thesmokinggun.com, a website devoted to airing the dirty laundry of celebrities. If there's a mugshot of anyone remotely famous, it'll be posted somewhere on that site. If there's an embarrassing/ridiculous divorce filing or pre-nuptial agreement, it'll be on that site.

in Manayunk has nothing to do with any of this. I've been to two of the three locations of this local coffeehouse chain and the vibe is anti-celebrity, pro-community, and pro-environment. The ingredients are organic and local whenever possible. The coffee is fair trade and organic. They recycle everything. The milk comes from Lancaster County. Most impressive though is the commitment to finding suppliers who have a triple bottom line.

Most business have a single bottom line: to make money. Some businesses have a double bottom line: to make money and help the community. Triple bottom line companies strive to make money, help the community, and help the environment. Mugshots is a triple bottom line business and seeks to work with like minded businesses.

We went in for Sunday lunch. My friend had a soy latte and I had a very berry banana smoothie. Her soy latte was picture perfect and tasty. The coffee here is wonderful. My smoothie was delicious. Sometimes smoothies made with soy milk have that gritty texture but this was smooth as silk. The berries were the dominant flavor with just a subtle hint of banana. I finished the entire cool and refreshing cup.

For more sustenance we had The Capone (smoked free-range turkey breast from Koch's Turkey Farm in Tamaqua, PA, Green Meadow double smoked bacon, tomato, avocado, and lettuce with chili mayo, on a whole wheat wrap) and the smoked nova lox and bagel. 

The Capone was filled with great ingredients. The turkey was real and not some deli roll turkey, the bacon was salty and crisp, and the avocado bright green. Her wrap looked a bit on the small side but it proved to be too much to finish. I think it was the richness of the bacon, avocado, and chili mayo. Not that this is a bad thing! It was a fine looking, and tasting, wrap.

I chose an everything bagel for my lox plate and it came with plenty of cream cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and lettuce. The lettuce was a bit sad looking and I hate it on bagels anyway so got rid of it. The bagel had a crisp toasted exterior and chewy interior and the other vegetables were tasty. The lox was unctuous and savory. I love bagels and lox and it's always a great way to start your Sunday.

The service is very casual but friendly. This is a very laid back environment. Sometimes things will take longer than you want it to but that is par for the course. The staff is young, I don't think I've ever dealt with anyone over 25 here or at the Fairmount location.

The decor is indie coffeehouse. Menus and drink items are written on a chalk board and there are plenty of cushy chairs and wooden tables. Free progressive newspapers abound as do students on their laptops in jeans and t-shirts. You feel as though you are in a scene from the movie "Singles".

Mugshots does have a jailbird theme to it with items named after infamous criminal masterminds (Bonnie & Clyde, Machine Gun Kelly, etc.) and jails (Alcatraz, also where Mr. Capone was incarcerated) but there is nothing criminal about the quality food and drink served here.

The fare is made honestly, using local ingredients cultivated by honest hard working people who wouldn't hurt a fly. The practices of the Mugshots coffeehouses work for the community and the environment. In fact, maybe I was wrong earlier. Mugshots coffeehouses do have something in common with celebrity culture: an interest in the environment. Unlike the A-listers and starlets though, Mugshots actually cares about the environment in a way that goes beyond photo-opps.