The Drover’s Grind, Centerport PA

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The Drover’s Grind, Centerport PA

13 Sep

My relationship status with Pennsylvania’s backroads is “It’s Complicated.”

Without a global positioning system at my beck and call, I’d be lost out here in the cornfields of eastern Pennsylvania. Oh, these are beautiful cornfields. It’s just that most of them are owned by people who don’t take kindly to strangers pulling into their driveways to check their maps and turn around. Pennsylvania’s country roads may feel like they lead nowhere, but they’re home to a lot of people who moved here to get away from people.

I’d never been to Centerport before. I’d never even heard of it before today in the context of local coffee. Only while looking for coffee in the far-flung fields between Harrisburg and Allentown did its name pop up associated with the cafe. More on that later.

Centerport looks like it sits near I-78, but it doesn’t really. Geographically, it’s close, but to get there from the highway, you have to take a maze of small but bustling country roads. I think I mentioned it before: The melding of one field into another has a liminal and hypnotic effect. I could drive forever out here and feel like I was traveling through an eternal cohesive somewhere. Like the reflective lights on a highway on a dark night, it will sucker your attention away.

I almost missed the cafe. Driving down the main thoroughfare, The Drover’s Grind sits to the right in a nondescript white building in the middle of the suddenly-appearing town of Centerport. Oh, and by the way, Centerport doesn’t seem to have a port. There’s a picturesque, winding main street, though. The coffee shop’s parking is around the back, with the entrance facing a fork in the road. I mean that literally. Looking over my shoulder, I noticed a giant fork stuck in the grassy spot between the two diverging roads.

I walked into the cafe, and the owner, Kevin, was at the front counter (though I didn’t know him yet, of course). He welcomed me in, and as I ordered, I immediately started telling him why I was there. My eyes wandered around the room as we spoke, and I was sure he’d sense I was here for more than coffee. Some people look askance at bloggers. As a businessman, though, Kevin was all too familiar with internet travelogues. I came right out with it and told him I did this for the history and character of a place as much as for the coffee. Did he ever have a tale to tell!

The Drover’s Grind has been here in one form or another since 1818. It started as an inn, and the evidence is hanging on the walls. You can see it below. A drover, you see, is a driver of cattle or sheep. Eastern Pennsylvania has been farmed for hundreds of years, and the pride is on full display across the countryside. Signs abound, branding tracts of farmland with one family name or another.

Photographs lining the back wall were like windows into that past. Elegant couples, buggy workshops, and men at work on something or other stared back at me in stark relief. These weren’t just pictures. They were professional photographs, taken in an age when that meant standing still, looking your best, and knowing this image was headed for posterity. You won’t find Centerport’s history on its website references its incorporation in 1884 and a nebulous mention of the Patriotic Order Sons of America that met here. Instead, the history is scrawled into the terrain and structures like this cafe, standing atop a mountain of years.

The coffee itself brought back a flood of memories from February: my visit to the Poconos. Mauch Chunk was the brand, and the memory was of Jim Thorpe. Now, the coffee in the bag below isn’t the variety I had. Kevin was only too happy to chat with me about coffee varieties and their origins. I was specifically given a South American breakfast blend. I knew it before he said anything. A distinct nuttiness was present that I do (I believe) remember from Jim Thorpe. It was also quite flavorful for a breakfast blend.

Readers know that’s a specific ‘draw’ for me: a robust, leguminous flavor that normally comes with solid South American roasts. I endeavor to be as objective as possible, though, and this was certainly well-made from start to finish. I’ll be back for more then next time I come out this way for a festival-one was advertised for the near future.

Every town is the center of its own universe. Fewer than 500 people live in Centerport, but if a random white-sided building in that town can turn out to be a trove of history, then you can never know enough about the smallest place. Villages humbler than Centerport with storied pasts are out there…and those are the kind of places that have great coffee, I’ve noticed. History builds upon itself. A place that acknowledges its own uniqueness creates more of it. Food (and coffee) for thought.

Before leaving The Drover’s Grind, I took a quick look at the surrounding territory on my map. Sure enough, another coffeehouse was nearby. I’ll let you guess the name. I’d heard rumors about the place, but I was ready to save that trip for later. Here’s the thing: Later is imaginary. After a summer of challenges (which has segued into an equally challenging autumn), that message has come in loud and clear. There’s no reason not to hit a second location, and there is every reason to do it. I’ll post that second part of this leg of the Journey in a week or two.

Stay tuned, and stay caffeinated.