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Missoula's Coffee Huts

If you've ever driven cross-country and are a coffee aficionado, forget it. You will get midway and begin to see that coffee found on the road tends to be everything from weak to sour to too bitter to sludgy.

Next time, make sure you hit up Missoula, MT, home to U of Montana and also filled with coffee 'huts'. Apparently, these folks haven't yet sold out to Peet's, Starbucks or Au Bon Pain. They are still true individualists:

a gaggle of cheerful, idiosyncratic, free-standing coffee huts. We found them on side streets, in mall parking lots, next to gas stations and grocery stores. They had distinct personalities and funny names -- our local favorite was the Grizzly Bean, though on the road we were charmed by Pony Expresso. Some had been creatively converted from old rail cars or trailers, and they were decorated for Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas

No one there thinks anything of them, except they've got awesome, inexpensive coffee and are roadside convenient with a whole lot more character than your average barista.

Related Stories:
·   In Montana, Bean There done That [Washington Post]
·   Missoula Convention and Visitor's Bureau [Official Site]