It’s hard to choose between a dark roast or a medium roast, an iced mojito coffee or an iced mocha coffee, a slice of avocado toast or a warm buttery croissant. For that matter, it’s hard to make up your mind about anything at Philz Coffee. Tucked away at the back of Town Center in Corte Madera, this newly-opened coffee shop will impress anyone and everyone. Known as one of the pioneers of “Third Wave Coffee,” a movement to produce high quality coffee and to treat it like an artisanal foodstuff rather than a commodity, Philz is a unique, pleasant and fun experience.
Philz has real coffee. It’s not a place where the most popular drink is a Pumpkin Spice Latte or a Unicorn Frappucino. Philz Coffee is how coffee really should be. The flavors are authentic, the coffee is bold and the caffeine rush is intense. Nothing is overly sweet or watered down, and the barista makes the drink right in front of you; all of the coffee is pour-over and they add the cream and sugar.
A perfect example of coffee gone well is the “Jacob’s’ Wonderbar” dark roast coffee. At $4.50 for a large cup, this roast checked all the boxes. The flavor was deep and had a chocolatey, nutty undertone. The drink was the perfect temperature. It wasn’t a lukewarm liquid that you forgot about on your desk for twenty minutes, but it also wasn’t something so hot that would burn your tongue and serve as a reminder during your next three meals. The barista added a perfect blend of cream and sugar, known as “50/50” in Philz lingo. Without becoming overly sweet or creamy, the flavors and origin of the coffee were still present as well.
If a hot coffee from Philz still doesn’t cut it, the shop has a variety of unique iced drinks that will make anyone go crazy. Take the iced Tesora mocha, for example. At $5.50, the mocha is a quintessential blend between cold and flavorful coffee mixed with rich cream and a chocolatey, syrupy bottom whose flavor seeps into the coffee that sits above. While this mocha is addictive, it’s not something that will have most counting their calories and feeling sick by the end. It’s not overwhelmingly sweet, but it gets the job done if you’re looking for a cold, chocolatey blend on a hot day.
If you’re feeling exotic, you may want to sip on a mint mojito iced coffee. The name may not sound appealing, but it’s not what you may think. This adventurous concoction combines iced coffee, cream and a subtle mint flavor. Atop the white frothy drink sits a fresh mint leaf, whose green color pops out against the white foam.
Oh, and they have food too. Lots of it. Philz serves a range of fill-me-ups, from flaky chocolate croissants and Greek baklava to avocado toast and a Philz bagel, which combines cucumbers, tomatoes, cream cheese and salt on a fresh New York bagel. Whether you’re looking for a sweet pastry to accompany your coffee in the morning or something to give you energy for your upcoming day at school, chances are you will find it at Philz.Welcome! This sign will show a first timer how it goes at Philz!
Besides the coffee, what separates Philz from any other coffee shop in the area is its environment and culture.
The baristas ask you how your day is as you wait for your coffee to be crafted, and customers chat in line. The menu is written in bright colors and is small, not in your face with thirty plus menu items and overwhelming calorie counts next to them. You can find games like Connect 4 to play at a table while sipping on your coffee. Philz is not a place you walk in, have your drink within five minutes and rush back to your car. The line is long and the shop is spacious and filled with comfortable furniture; Philz is a place to take your time.People there are having conversations, not staring down at their phones while drinking a chocolate chip frappucino. Everyone in the shop seems like a die-hard Philz drinker that would never settle for a different cup. The price for a coffee isn’t cheap at Philz, but for the quality and experience that comes with your drink, anything should be worth it. If you go there a lot, you might as well develop a first name basis with the employees.
