Behind the Bar with Elijah Lane

It’s about 3:45 pm on a Tuesday afternoon at Manchester Coffee Company and a guy wearing a Deus ex Machina shirt is standing behind the espresso machine. There is a film camera sitting on the bar next to him. The look in his eyes is stoic and he's fueled by well-extracted coffee. This is Elijah, our cafe manager and he is worth getting to know. 

It was about five years ago when Elijah fell in love with coffee. He would tell you that coffee was his refuge. A coffeeshop was safe space for him to unwind after classes at EKU. Little did he know coffee would create a whole new passion pursuit in his life outside of the computer science he was studying. 

One Saturday, at a coffee shop that he would frequent, the rush became too overwhelming for the barista staff on duty. So, Elijah was recruited to come behind the bar. While he was making pour-over after pour-over, a small flame was lit inside his soul that would grow into a slow and persistent burning passion for the specialty coffee industry. 

Over the past five years, Elijah’s persistence has become the expertise that is the driving force making Manchester Coffee Co. great. He has spent time as a coffee roaster and has trained his palette to be critical but not judgemental. Outside of his skills in coffee, Elijah is a remarkable mixologist and has worked behind amazing bars in Lexington. One of his greatest talents is reshaping the idea of coffee for the general public by creating clever coffee mocktails like the Mizudashi Cold Brew Tonic⁠: a coffee soda with a grapefruit oleo-saccharum. 

Outside of living his coffee life to the fullest, Elijah can be found be on his Specialized road bike logging miles or in a kitchen somewhere quick-pickling something. Oh, by the way, he does all of these things with a camera in his hand and is a pretty killer photographer. 

Stop into MCC and see Elijah. He’ll most likely be drinking espresso and Mexican Coke. Better yet, come see what he has on the menu. The crazy drink names will make it hard for you to decide what drink you’ll fall in love with first.