Tahoe City’s “Tahoe House” coffee honored at Sochi Winter Olympics

For years, we have happily distributed our magazine at the Tahoe House Bakery & Gourmet in Tahoe City, and we have featured the bakery in our magazine. We’re also regular customers.

Now the word is out in Sochi. “Best coffee in the world — Tahoe House,” reads a plate on the wall in the U.S. Hospitality Suite (see photo below).

Tahoe House’s Facebook page features a photo of the plate with the caption: “Congratulations to Travis Ganong! Fifth place finish in the first downhill in the Sochi Olympics. Look what one of our customers found on on the wall in the USA hospitality suite. How nice of him to think of us all the way in Russia!”

Ganong, a Squaw Valley local and Tahoe House patron, is on the cusp of a breakout season, as the U.S. Ski Team website notes.

“Growing up minutes from Squaw Valley, he found himself in the Mighty Mites peewee program as a tyke. He devoured the opportunity. ‘Cliffs, chutes, pillow-lines, arcin’ turns down the Dog Leg! I couldn’t get enough,’ he recalls. With his sisters showing the way, he got into the race program. He pointed to his sister Megan’s time on the U.S. Ski Team and said he wanted to follow her lead.”

Ganong’s performance at Sochi drew praise. “The Squaw Valley, Calif., native placed fifth with a time of 2.06.64, .31 seconds shy of the bronze-medal time of Norway’s Kjetil Jansrud,” as USA Today reported. “It was Ganong’s best finish in a major international event in the downhill, besting his seventh-place mark in a World Cup event in Austria last month.

“‘My run was awesome,’ Ganong said. ‘I did basically what I wanted to do. I pushed hard. I pushed huge off the jumps and had a smile on my face when I finished.’

(Photo: Mark Epstein, U.S. Ski Team)

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