‘Pound the Hill’
courtesy of ‘Samer Farha’
I don’t know what it is about coffee shops catching my attention lately, especially because I don’t drink what they sell unless it tastes more like a chocolate milkshake than coffee. It must be because they are using Twitter like pros!

Pound Coffee, The Hill has been tweeting away for about one year and a half. The shop’s description has changed a bit though, since @PoundCoffee opened up on Capitol Hill the same day it closed in NoMa. Everything else social media wise has stayed the same: contests, special codes and general musings about life.

The “tech/social media geek” (his description, not mine) behind the account is Pound owner Karl Johnson. He says Pound’s food concept depends on the use of dynamic media daily to let people know what they’re serving and make them hungry enough to walk in the door. Pound, of course, serves a different lunch every day.

See the winning tweet after the jump.

So true and funny. It’s good to have a restaurant feel more like a person on Twitter, with random thoughts and observations.

On a funny note — Johnson says that when Pound held a Twitter/Facebook contest for a new slogan for the back of their shirts, “the entries all went straight to the gutter.” Unsurprising given their current shirt slogan of “I got some this morning,” but he tells me, “We had to abandon that contest for now :)”

I also like Johnson’s thoughts about interacting with other businesses and potential competitors on Twitter. In his words, “running a small retail business is damn near impossible and any free press you can give to a brother in the business is good karma and just the right thing to do.”

And if you are looking for Pound to give something to YOU, just follow the shop on Twitter for its free Nutella latte code, come in and say it, and enjoy!

Pound Coffee is located at 621 Pennsylvania Ave SE. The closest metro station is Eastern Market (Blue/Orange Lines). For more information, call 202-621-6765.

Tricia Barba

Tricia is a native Washingtonian, born and raised in Columbia Heights. She loves DC so much that she was only able to leave the city for one year after college and immediately came running back. Tricia works in PR during the day, and spends her nights trying out new restaurants in DC with friends or watching The Good Wife, Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice. Tricia recently decided to eat her way though all of Zagat’s 2011 restaurants until she realized she would be old and broke by the time she finished. Follow her on Twitter and email her at Tricia (at) welovedc.com.