In every coffee shop ever

those were totally music reviews, i swear

there are probably more cafes in per capita in the US than in the 1920s left bank, now

CORPORATE COFFEE 4 LIFE

ILE POETRY SLAM

i have seen my soul grow venti

how is starbucks not a coffee shop, please

all is forgiven

unless it's starbucks, then it's:
- employees who work there only for insurance benefits

usually its just water sans ice.

Dude secretly taking down snippets of overheard conversation for indie film script he's writing.

http://pixtrak.com/img/img_1147265883_404-thumb.jpg

Sweaty hillwalkers with muddy boots.
Bored waitress texting her boyfriend.
Harassed mother with two squabbling children.
Copy of the Daily Mail/Star/Mirror.
Bacon and Black Pudding rolls. With some grated lettuce.
Pensioners stretching out their beverage until bus arrives.

- vanilla powder condiment in clear glass container
- rack of the day’s New York Times
- young (sub)urban sophisticates queing up for lame overpriced coffee they could, if not so lazy, just make at home

Brew-Haha
Strange Brew
Play It Again, Sam

you forgot "Good Karma"

GROUND

IM IN UR COFFEESHOP BEGGIN 4 UR GROUNDS

Teenagers...so easily amused.

Portfolio
Sidewalk Cafe
Busters in South Pasadena

Koffee Klatch (Laguna Beach)
Sacred Grounds (San Pedro)
It's A Grind (everywhere)
Bean Town (Sierra Madre)
Mudpuppy (Highland Park)
The Ugly Mug (Orange)
Young And Lazy (Long Beach)

"Java.net" or somesuch.

also ray, my desk is basically a coffeshop

That reminds me: I meant to put the "venti-mocha-chacka" style of bagging on Starbucks in the NOT FUNNY thread.

-the names of real coffee shops
-the names of coffee shops in movies/tv?

i also like "higher grounds". that's right off valencia by like 20th st, right??

used to have cup a joe and daily grind.

in san diego it was parliaments and american spirits

wtf is wrong with a crepe while I play my go?

*This is mainly what I find in the Northeast. I've heard west coast is much better.

1000% OTMFM.

esp. pretentious graffiti IN THE BATHROOM.

-- Ned Raggett (ne...), October 9th, 2006.

= Tuesday - No One Buys Anything Night

-- Laurel (sininspac...), October 9th, 2006.

Which is now under new ownership and now called Sweet Priscilla.

There's also one in JC called Legal Grounds now. And the guy opened a second shop in Hoboken and called it Legal BEANS. (???)

I doubt it. It's just too true.

That reminds me: I meant to put the "venti-mocha-chacka" style of bagging on Starbucks in the NOT FUNNY thread.

-- researching ur life (goforgrad...), October 9th, 2006.

On tour in the South I created a "character" kind of like this, except he wears a cowboy hat and boots and says "LAAAA-TAY? WHUT THE HELL IS A LAAAA-TAY?"

DAN WHATSHIMSNAME TEACHS YOU GUITAR!

I think there was also a Capital Grounds in downtown Austin back in the early nineties. I think I played bass there as part of an "unplugged" gig.

27 Jan - Paper by J.T. Stringer and open discussion: 'Central State Materialism - what is implied, logically speaking, by the identity of mind and brain?'

24 Feb - Paper by M. Cobbingham and open discussion: 'The (Post)man always rings twice: Feminism, Marxism and the raciocination of the body'.

24 March - Paper by R.L. Coutes and open discussion: 'Towards a hedgehog theory of aesthetic relations'.

etc

This cannot be serious.

they have good turkey burgers.

-an out-of-tune piano that the same girl comes in and plays every day, proudly displaying the fruits of her six months of piano lessons when she was 12

-flyers on bulletin board for depression study, rich woman who will pay five figures for some master-race eggs, outdoor screening of a movie you've seen twenty times, something with the words "guerilla" and "bicycle"

(I forget which one is in the East Village and which one is in Shoreditch but you know what I mean...)

Gotta give my old friend/Newark native Kevin Hoffman props for introducing me to that place. And Sissy zine. And Yukko. And Boy Sets Fire. And hardcore culture. And too many other things to list here.

*Bidis, as in Indian cigarettes rolled in eucalyptus leaves, which was all anyone ever smelled. I probably spelled "Bidi" wrong.

Those were the BEST chess games of my LIFE.

Raymond Cummings, I went to college in Newark, Delaware and spent a fair amount of time in that very Brew Ha Ha. Neat. I'm glad you found spending time in Newark an enriching experience.

What’s sorta pathetic is that most of the times when I went I went alone, I’d drive 1-2 hours from Chestertown or Denton to spend 2-3 hours in Newark – Wings to Go or C.R. Wings (20-30 lethal wings and a side of fries), then hit Captain Blue Hen Comics, Newark News (mostly cuz they sold the Baffler but it was a great newsstand overall), Bert’s for CDs (overpriced but a nice place, cool employees) – then drive all the way back home. Ah, youth. Ah, disposable income. Ah, free time.

Only went to the coffee shops when I was with other people though.

xpost that's "closer to fine" my friend

picking up someone's shared music library and laughing out loud at all the Juliana Theory they have on laptop

When I went to school, the best coffee shops were the Malt Shop, which was located in an old house where the mall-thing that contains Brew Ha Ha is now, and Treats ("A Canadian Bakery," whatever the hell that meant), which was notable for serving then still-novel flavored coffee. And pizza bagels - Canada's contribution to world cuisine, I guess.

And I am very old. The end.

Thread contribution: One unisex bathroom that always smells unpleasantly of pee.

murky coffee (DC) faq:
Q: Any 'house rules' at murky?
A: The only real rule right now is that you can't sleep, or appear to be sleeping, in the shop. Other stuff is common sense stuff, like don't wet the bed. Oh, actually, there's one more rule, but it's not really a rule, because it's more about enforcing an existing rule. If you play Monopoly, you MUST know that the $500 in the middle that you get if you land on "Free Parking" is NOT a bonafide Monopoly rule. Neither is the "you have to go around the board once before you can start buying property" rule. Know your Monopoly rules. That's the rule, buster

wacky!

[img deleted]>

(It is Mike and the MST3K bots in a sketch that argued that one cannot sit in a coffee house and not be pretentious.)

wtf?

I'm not quite sure what it is about this that I find so hilarious, but it's brilliant. I really want to open a coffee shop now called Jim's Fava Bean.

Also in every provincial Irish/UK coffee shop:

*wipe down menus with clipart pictures of cups of coffee on them

*every conceivable misspelling of lattay, cappuchino, caupicino, or other expresso-based drink, which doesn't really matter because they're either dispensed from an automatic machine, or they're from a Maxwell House sachet

My pet hate about every coffee shop is how they'll shite on about their sixty bazillion flavours of fresh ground doodad, and how they went to barista school and learned how to achieve the ultimate crema, and then if you ask for tea they'll give you a Twinings tea bag and some hot water in a cup.

- Some guy who things that because you have a laptop, you're obliged to provide tech support to him

OTFreakingM!

See also: every coffee bar that's also doubles as the local new age emporium.

xpost

WORD OF HATE

It was pain in the ass, trust me.

sometimes i have to leave before i place my order!!!

also -- at some places, they have all the little awards the baristas won, proufly displayed.

Fuck kokopelli. I've lived in Arizona, none of you even know.

I second this. With a vengeance.

see also: santa fe

Dude, before the poxy fuling I was gonna say Elliot Smith!

Also, "Thanks a Latte" written on the tip jar.

Kokopelli is the New Mexico state bird.

A gas station here has wallpaper of kokopelli holding HAMBURGERS and SOFT DRINKS instead of flutes.

Abbott you superstar! You found THE LEGEND!

Awesome.

A white guy with dreadlocks, black rimmed glasses and a laptop answering emails about his shitty music from a record label in Utrecht.

+ Jack Johnson vibin' from yr speakers

i'd like to make an addendum to mucho's original answer here:

shitty paintings bearing price tags with gigglicious sums on them

Group of employees from local 'creative' office being forced to brainstorm in public.

Three week old copy of The Sunday Times' Style section; two month old copy of i-D, random inserts from this weeks' Guardian, copy of Wired from some point about two years ago.

wow this thread is a brilliant downer i am so glad i dont ever go to coffee shops

Three week old copy of The Sunday Times' Style section; two month old copy of i-D, random inserts from this weeks' Guardian, copy of Wired from some point about two years ago.

Yes! But also could double as laundromat debris...

At Rehoboth Beach last weekend I drank coffee at places called "Brew Horizons" and "Brew Ha-Ha."

Oh, and these places and their competitors all prominently displayed (unappetizing) posters for an upcoming film festival.

I usually just go to a stand. They have bees all over the honey container.

wow this thread is a brilliant downer i am so glad i dont ever go to coffee shops

word

I like seeing the bees trying to take their honey back. It's funny.

> Yes! But also could double as laundromat debris...

Well then!

In every laundomat ever

This thread gets better every time I read it.

"Indie Coffee" in Madison is a worse name than any yet given here (though it's a perfectly fine coffeeshop)

shitty paintings bearing price tags with gigglicious sums on them

Alternately, tediously arty photographs, also available for gigglicious prices.

The horrible thing is that it makes me want to go to a coffee shop RIGHT NOW. I can't think of them without thinking of my best friend and I routinely obsessing about our romantic lives and not caring whether the public around us is entertained or annoyed, and I miss her a lot at the moment.

has no-one written those freakin chalkboard quotes? probably from Dorothy Parker? there was one down the street called 'THAT food company' and on their blackboard last week was written "The government takes from those who work and give to those that don't" I went in and told them they were assholes. They told me I need to look at my own issues. I hate them and their bamboo interior and stupid stupid quiche.

(maria, ^^that is exactly what my sister and i do)

ok:

A GUY LAUGHING TO HIMSELF ABOUT NOTHING AT A TABLE FOR HOURS

i know these ppl are crazy but it really gets on my wick anyway

- homeless guy who comes in for the free water

- caffeine-related Far Side/Dilbert/Non Sequitur taped to the side of the cash register

- thick varnished/laquered tables with weird collages of omgsorandom postcards/photos...kind of sticky from being badly wiped with dirty cloths for 10 years

- college friend/s of barista who hang by the counter and jaw with them for half an hour, while barista pretends to still be working/taking orders but who has actually slowed to a crawl and is driving me CRAZY! GRRR

haha the homesless guy would not be tolerated at my local shop

There was a homeless guy who would come in and pour himself a glass of half n half at a now closed coffee shop near my alma mater. I was there the day they told him to take a hike and he dumped the glass a milk on the dishwasher. It was kind of awesome.

haha the best at the coffee shop i used to go to was that it was around the corner from not one but two different halfway houses -- also not far from a major university -- so the shop was like this weird split between hot & cool 20somethings and crazy old dude addict nutbars

i dont get why everyone is so down on coffee shops in this thread -- all of the things listed were pretty funny and on point but that doesnt make them bad places to chill

that exactly describes the one I go to. You can tell the new baristas by how uncomfortable they are with the homeless regulars.

my first job as a high-school student was in a coffee shop, and one night I found a gun on top of the toilet in the men's room...so, A GUN

Endtroducing

one somewhat nutty elderly regular. everyone loves him/her.

― gear (gear), Monday, October 9, 2006 6:36 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

YES
where do they come from? what are they made of?

And how do they become so beloved?

it rhymes with man bobs

Endtroducing

truth bomb!

An bunch of 20somethings in a semi-ironic knitting meetup.
Photos of employees dogs / babies behind counter.

serving $1 PBRs at said functions

Lack of electrical outlets.

heavily tattooed straightedge lesbians serving soy lattes while blasting hardcore gangsta rap from their ipods

(I miss you Verb cafe)

i <3 my local coffeeshop

i spent like a year of my life there

some guy on a laptop who's there all day everyday for a full year who doesn't appear to be doing anything resembling gainful employment

^^^me in 2007

The feeling that the coffee shop will be out of business soon.

i dunno, i don't think these places make a ton of money, but somehow they stick around longer than a lot of other businesses.

and they probably make more money selling sub-$5 items to unemployables than the shitty overpriced restaurant that has no customers at all

lively and "dignified" pictures of the third-world peasants who picked -- or are in the process of picking -- the coffee that is being served.

this makes me squirm. although i see it more at starbucks and other coffee chains than at local indies. usually the chains don't carry fair trade / shade grown beans either -- if they do it's only one kind and they only brew it to order.

i dunno, i don't think these places make a ton of money, but somehow they stick around longer than a lot of other businesses.

― i am david suzuki (get bent), Monday, 20 April 2009 12:08 (34 minutes ago)

A place that focuses on volume can make a ton of money because profit margins on stuff like coffee are very high (Starbucks, basically). But I think a lot of coffee shops are opened by people who just think coffee shops are neato.

if gordon ramsay has taught me anything, it's that restaurants (and i'll lump coffee shops in there; sub in "coffee" for "food") are typically run by foodies who know nothing about business or business people who know nothing about food. sometimes they're hopeless in both departments.

tho gordon's restaurants are in trouble right now too, IN THIS ECONOMY.

a lot of the coffeeshops i frequented in nyc have closed

but then, so have lots of starbucks it seems

in nyc it's probably because of insane rent gouging rather than lack of customers. :-(

my understanding is that coffeeshops tend to be on the high end of food-industry success-rate rankings. or whatever. something like 3 in 4 restaurants that open up go out of business within the first 2-3 years vs. 1 in 2 coffeeshops (or such was the case a couple years ago; dunno about now)

From the coffeeshops I've seen closed, things can have this illusory aura of success because the place is always full of people - but they're buying one coffee and sitting there for seven hours.

They also tend to have WAYYYY too many people on staff at any given time, from my perspective as an outsider. Of course, unpredictable rushes will happen so it's probably not so dumb.

ive noticed coffee shops change owners frequently, but rarely cease to exist altogether

The tip jar signs aren't in EVERY coffee shop -- Starbucks won't allow them. But the coffee shop closest to me has a sign that says, "We won't spend it on drugs. We promise." Love that.

"Tuesday - poetry slam."

hahahaha, i know right??? they're all like HEY daddy-o you HIP to what's COOL? and i'm like, not tonight, son, my beret's at the cleaners! hahaha!

awwww my kokopelli vanished :(

The tip jar signs aren't in EVERY coffee shop -- Starbucks won't allow them. But the coffee shop closest to me has a sign that says, "We won't spend it on drugs. We promise." Love that.

Say what? It's not a jar, but the one nearest to me has one of those toll-booth lookin' receptacles asking for tips in its drive-thru. At least the one at McDonalds goes to its Ronald McDonald House.

ive noticed coffee shops change owners frequently, but rarely cease to exist altogether

― autogucci cru (deej), Thursday, May 21, 2009 7:45 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

in every coffee shop ever -- new owner trying to reinvent the coffee shop with big, stupid ideas

xp Huh. I've been told by a Starbuck employee that they weren't allowed to have a tip jar. Maybe it isn't company policy, or maybe it's been a long time since I went into a Starbucks.

in every coffee shop ever -- new owner trying to reinvent the coffee shop with big, stupid ideas

Typically, it's a new paint job (brick red seems to have replaced the flakey mustard color) and some sort of cooked food for breakfast (crepes, omelets, etc.)

i was just in a coffee shop yesterday (jumpin' java in studio city) with the flaky mustard color! they do have cooked breakfast food.

A white guy with dreadlocks, black rimmed glasses and a laptop answering emails about his shitty music from a record label in Utrecht.

― moley, Wednesday, September 12, 2007

LOL this is totally one of R's friends.

i was just in a coffee shop yesterday (jumpin' java in studio city) with the flaky mustard color! they do have cooked breakfast food.

I seem to recall that Coffee Fix on Moorpark St. in Studio City also has the mustard color. Not sure about M Street (haven't been on that side of town in awhile)

Silver Lake Coffee was the place I was thinking of when I wrote that. They had the flakey mustard color for years and then changed hands repainting to brick red and hiring a omelet chef in the morning.

m street doesn't have the mustard color, but it does have bad local art on the walls. as well as amazing coffee.

coffee fix has the standard english imports (like pg tips tea) shelved on one wall. and a really funny myspace page.

M Street's tea selection is amazingly great.

I love that Coffee Fix serves "Heinz Baked Beans on toast" specifically (any other kinds of baked beans are Not Proper). Where is there a expat Australian coffee bar that serves spaghetti on toast?

i want to order the heinz baked beans at coffee fix and insist they put this on the stereo:

http://www.coverbrowser.com/image/the-who/60-1.jpg

Ha at Heinz Baked Beans gag and new screen name elliot easton ellis.

some guy with a macbook not actually doing anything on the laptop. eyeing up girls.

groups of art school students 'working' on their 'projects'
job interviews
hip mom meetups

coffee shop at the zoo: shitty elephant paintings

I think every Starbucks I've been to has either a tip jar on the counter or the above-mentioned plastic thingie at the drive-thru.

Starbucks locations located inside of grocery stores usually don't have them, due to the grocery store's policies.

leftover newspaper missing news and funny pages, leaving only local interest and want ads

in every coffee shop ever -- new owner trying to reinvent the coffee shop with big, stupid ideas

Typically, it's a new paint job (brick red seems to have replaced the flakey mustard color) and some sort of cooked food for breakfast (crepes, omelets, etc.)

― Carroll Shelby Downard (Elvis Telecom), Friday, 22 May 2009 05:58 (7 hours ago)

I guess I'm partly thinking about what happened to the coffee shop I used to go to right before I moved -- new owner painted things in this weird pink, black and white scheme, added activities like "speed dating," etc. I guess that's not every coffee shop ever. But I do get the impression that every coffee shop owner ever thinks "I can make this work -- I'll bring in tons of customers by having ACOUSTIC GUITAR nights. Yeah!"

Ha, I remember one dude on Smith Street that had a CELLO afternoon. At one point he made the cellist move over to clear a space on the other half of the window seat, presumably to allow some hoped-for extra customer to sit there.

Sorry, I misspoke, it was actually on Court Street. This was before the big Smith Street renaissance.

Smith St. area has a new breed of coffee shops - two new ones even since I moved here. Both are of the coffee snob variety, which I like -- overtrained baristas who make espresso drinks that are too good.

But there's also Tea Lounge, which is like a time machine to 10th grade for me - huge, shitty cups of coffee, ugly curb-picked sofas, terrible art on the walls, very low turnover.

my local coffee shop is doing okay but only okay; one of the owners (it's owned by a married couple) just had to go get another job, for instance. part of this is because they recently adopted a baby which was costly and they close earlier than they could, I think, but also, people really do sit in there all day and take up tables and buy, like, one coffee.

- people buying just one coffee
- ill-considered adopted children

favorite brooklyn coffee shop is tazza on henry st. definitely frou-frou, but it's earned the right to be. iirc, they don't have wifi. i guess they figure that if you're gonna sit there for two hours, it wouldn't kill you to read a book.

-untrained barristarers

I asked for a cappucino. You making me a latte and sprinkling some coco on top means MAD DISRESPECT

dogs tied up just outside the door.

Guy with a nasty cough

lots of suede blazers, scarves when it's not even that cold, and dark thick-rimmed rectangle-framed glasses

Is the name of the place Passatino's?

People attempting to join a social group by proximity. Everyone eventually vaguely knows everyone else there, although few introductions have been made.

the only minority is a black woman who looks like Cree Summer

some guy with a macbook not actually doing anything on the laptop. eyeing up girls.

I'm just taking a break.

People attempting to join a social group by proximity. Everyone eventually vaguely knows everyone else there, although few introductions have been made.

― mh, Thursday, 22 October 2009 05:42 (10 hours ago) Bookmark

my social life, basically

also
-untrained barristarers

I asked for a cappucino. You making me a latte and sprinkling some coco on top means MAD DISRESPECT

― warmsherry, Wednesday, 21 October 2009 15:41 (Yesterday) Bookmark

this happened again. same spot. this time i was spared the sprinkeling tho

people lurking around waiting for a table near an outlet to open up

Two really comfortable couch/chair looking things that everyone wants but once you sit in it you realize it smells like sweat and you start to itch.

Blatantly ignored "No Smoking" sign outside.

Satelite radio tuned to either reggae, blues, or acoustic channel

the only minority is a black woman who looks like Cree Summer

If there were one of these in every coffee shop, I'd be in a coffee shop ALL the damn time.

Student/indie film makers showing off the latest cut of their movie to potential investors/hirelings (two different groups of these today!)

Jewish women in their 70s talking about diabetes. (This could be a Hendon variant only.)

- terrible, terrible photographs of stock photo 101 subjects, printed at enormous sizes with price tags to match

- outsourcing of petty tasks to customers, especially keeping carafes stocked with half-and-half

- audacious faith in the shelf life of cookies originally conceived by the baker as moist and chewy, now reimagined as dense, scone-like dipping items

- floundering attempt to come up with non-trademarked neologisms for frozen espresso beverages, e.g. "Frozoccino" "Capuchillo" "Javarctica"

- promotional flyers/postcards for once-upcoming modern dance performance (invariably at the local trapeze studio), still gathering dust some months later

- lost under the above: promotional flyer for something you actually would have gone to had you known about it, which took place yesterday

empty table covered in crumbs and spilt coffee you have to wipe down with one of those cheap brown napkins that just pushes liquid around

tooth picks and those gross chalky mints

"This coffee shop is going to be different -- it's going to be an art gallery too"

$10 banh mi

yeah, or $10 nu-sandwich that comes on very large thick pieces of bread and doesn't have very much filling

Miserable people that are trying to intensely stare their laptops into submission.

- one (1) confused retiree desperately searching the menu board for 'coffee'

Doctor Casino's musings hit really close to home

- audacious faith in the shelf life of cookies originally conceived by the baker as moist and chewy, now reimagined as dense, scone-like dipping items

I originally read this as "now reimagined as dense, stone-like dipping items"

Which makes a lot of sense, too.

what is the word for the things (sugar, cream, etc) that go into the coffee, generally set off to the side in a coffeeshop or any coffee service area?

not 'condiments' - there's no PICKLING going on

(EVEN THOUGH they go where condiments would go, if there were food to condimentalize)

fixins

condiments is correct

It's only fixins if you're getting all the fixins. Fixins don't come in less quantity than all.

'a substance such as salt or ketchup that is used to add flavor to food'

late middle english, from latin condimentum, from condire 'to pickle'

1 fixin plz

http://www.google.com/search?q=coffee+condiments&rlz=1C1ARAB_enUS495US495&oq=coffee+condiments&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j0l5.2906j1j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8&gws_rd=ssl&safe=active&surl=1

none of those people can be trusted

call them "mix-ins", like ur at an ice cream parlor

From condiō (“I spice, season”)

your obsession with pickling is irrelevant

mustard is condiment - it is not pickled

this seems like a good time to bring up the fact that google now offers word etymologies

How about 'sugar and cream'?

Only one more syllable than 'condiments'

not sufficiently inclusive--what about the sweeteners? the honey? the non-dairy coconut creamer??

one thing you can say for all of those things, though: you MIX them IN to your drink #TeamMixIns

whiskey as condiment

they are condiments. they are things you add to a comestible to alter its flavor. "your obsession with pickling is irrelevant" lol

or we can just pretend that perfect other word for coffee accoutrements is out there and we just cant think of it

THAT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE

what is and isn't acceptable by your pickling-obsessed mind is irrelevant

i want a pickle

http://i.imgur.com/8adbbRc.jpg

mustard is ground up mustard seeds preserved in a vinegar solution--ergo, pickled

so vinegar = pickling? idk about that

that would mean salad dressings are all pickles which is just... not right

yes it is

I always refer to 'em as "cream and sugar"! I just don't see any reason to get fancy about it.

You would know

http://www.vancouverobserver.com/sites/vancouverobserver.com/files/resize/images/blog/body/stevia-500x283.jpg

i think coffee bob is very credible

also calling them 'cream and sugar' serves to delegitimize all the other junk that people put in coffee, which.

anyways: weekly specials written in pink & white chalk

i say garnishes

http://www.thenibble.com/reviews/main/condiments/other/images/onions-260.jpg

in every coffee shop ever:

cheapskates who order espresso shots in a large cup with ice & then fill it full of the creamer reserved for GARNISHING bc they are too cheap to buy an iced coffee

goddamn savages

so otm. i've seen people pour themselves whole glasses of 2%!

assholes, all of them

thats also just disgusting

right?!

Milennial in front of me at the coffee shop ordered an aero press. After 5 minutes the barista pours the coffee into a lab beaker and then puts it on a tray with a cup. She feels the cup, judges it too cold, then asks the barista to swirl some hot water in it to warm it up.

what was that thread where someone held a contest to come up with band names for bands that would play at a college coffeeshop?

Exercise For Credit: Five Names For A Fictional Open Mic

great thread iirc

The tyranny of the algorithm: why every coffee shop looks the same

I don't even drink coffee anymore, but I've been feeling nostalgic lately for my first coffee shop, Funk's Democratic Coffee Spot in Baltimore. Found these photos on facebook. Furnished largely with second-hand furniture. Just learning now that some of the hand-painted chairs and tables were done by actual kids. It was open 24 hours, iirc, leading to numerous late nights chain-smoking and playing trivial pursuit or pictionary in the upstairs lounge until dawn. No idea if anyone does it like that anymore. Any independent coffee shop I've visited in the last 15 years has been so tidy and sterile.

https://i.imgur.com/XepE42D.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/G8phpwV.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/l9cNsQ7.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/MDX0UPr.jpg

amazing pics

Oh man, yeah that does give me nostalgia for an older breed of independent coffee shops, some of which seemed to go out when Starbucks came in. Maybe also some used books in there.

those pics are awesome! thank you for sharing. we have a few of those funky coffee shops left. really don't care for the instagram cafe aesthetic

The first posts in this thread seem like a lost world already: ""Tuesday - poetry slam", "Pile of alt-weeklies", etc etc

That article is interesting but the writer is too online. I know it's an excerpt but rent (unmentioned) seems like a big part of the story. I'm not sure it's a real 2024 revelation that Instagram marketing has bottomed out.

I do miss those "comfy sofa and a large pile of books" cafes that proliferated in the 90s and 00s, but I'm not convinced the Instagram aesthetic sameyness is *actually* that samey. And there have always been overpriced sterile cafes for as long as I remember.

- "fresh baked" gluten free bacon cheddar scone under glass, $4.75

This feels like one of those things that is true but overstated. - in that the net for homogeneity is maybe too wide (they do croissants! they offer oat milk.

That being said, I did come to post and ask what is with the "but first coffee" thing, where did it come from? I feel like I've seen this on and off for a long time now without really registering

I think it's just some dumb thing like live, laugh, love that they put on signs sold in TJ/K Max that grew out of the whole "I can't do anything before I have my coffee in the morning" thing.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fxx5rgKWYAAXtIl.jpg

Some douche with a dog

I'm actually really nice once you get to know me

I was shockingly old when I learnt about US late-night coffee culture. Not sure why, I mean, I've seen Nighthawks and Twin Peaks, I should know that diners and coffee shops are open late at night in the States, but it only dawned on me recently that in the US it's deemed pretty normal to just rock up to a place and start drinking coffee in the middle of the night or something. I'm not wrong here?

And in a way I'm a bit jealous: Not because I would dream of drinking a coffee any time after 2pm as it plays havoc with my sleeping patterns, but just the want of somewhere to go after hours and just hole up in, maybe read a book or a paper or something. Of course you get cafes here in the UK, but they all largely close by 3 or 4pm unless they convert to dining places. Pubs are fine, but they're deemed social zones, not places to just go and relax. You do sometimes see people reading alone in pubs, but it's not generally "the thing to do".

This thread is probably a little misleading, actually --- most of the "coffee shop" tropes catalogued here conform to the kind of coffee-centric establishments where people flop around for hours in secondhand armchairs, or seated in secondhand stools at secondhand tables, as they read, work on laptops, scribble in notebooks, or catch up with friends. The archetypal vibe is like a hippie used book store where the coffee and pastries won out over the bookshelves; they were later streamlined into a chain format by Starbucks, although they've ultimately shifted to focus on to-go orders of high-profit-margin 'treat' drinks over the sit-and-hang-out model.

In these places, you will find the kinds of people who might order coffee in the middle of the night, but they won't be able to, because these coffee shops tend to open up in the morning and wrap up in the early-to-mid-evening. They can run later, though, especially in college towns and other bohemian haunts. You might expect open-mic nights, board game nights, trivia, half-hearted attempts at being a wine bar, etc.

"Coffee shop" is also used --- though this is more regional/historical --- to refer to the kind of American eatery more widely known as diners, or more rarely, luncheonettes. These establishments are often 24-hour places, but whether in some Edward Hopper street-corner scene or in freestanding buildings, they are high-efficiency restaurants. The floor space is devoted to booths and counters for sitting and eating specifically. While they certainly serve coffee and pastries, they offer a full breakfast-lunch-dinner menu. (The streamlined chain version is Waffle House, with Denny's and Shoney's taking it into more of a fast-casual family restaurant mode.) This is where you'd expect to walk in at the middle of the night and find chainsmoking beat poets, wiseguy movie characters, and people working night-shift jobs, ordering coffee at 3 AM.

Yeah that's an important clarification.

I also wonder if the late night diner phenomenon is in decline, but tbh I wouldn't really know. The diner in my town closes early, but we are very much a family-oriented commuter town so most people are getting up early.

There is a sort of high-end coffee/beer place near me that stays open until 11pm and even 1am some nights, but it has a very well-stocked craft beer bar and I assume the late night scene is more bar than coffee shop.

Doctor Casino otm

The all-night diner is almost completely a relic of the past in a lot of places. If there's a non-chain 24 hour one left around here, I'm not aware of it. There's a Perkins (chain diner-style restaurant) that has one location that's still 24 hours but I doubt it's like it was in the old days. And by that, I mean at least one table of teenagers in the smoking session barely ordering anything and loitering for hours. No smoking section, no teens

That all makes sense, yes I assumed a lot of that in fact.

I would love the idea of a late-night library or some sort of place with comfy sofas and tables that sold various drinks that was neither a pub nor quite a cafe but somewhere in the middle; just a place to go and be that isn't the house

booths, miss big intimate booths that aren’t in $$$$$ steakhouses.

US late-night coffee culture does not exist

I just checked the two diners we hung out in when i was in HS on Long Island and one is open until 10pm on weeknights and midnight on weekends and the other until midnight every night. At the time we def drank coffee until they closed. Our other big hangout was the Borders books and music cafe which was open until 11pm at the time but no longer exists.

The bookstore cafe culture is definitely still a thing in Boston. Can think of quite a few places that stay open late and have that feel but maybe not as much as they were a few decades ago.

Upstate NY not so big on diners but man did we drink a lot of late night coffee at Denny's which, according to the internet, is open until 11pm these days.

I feel like Denny's and Perkins are very similar.

close enough

perkins always seemed more dank

lol yes. I have more experience with Perkins for some reason but yes.

I miss those heavy diner coffee cups. They are the best.

oh, also: pie. perkins has a variety of pies

i think of upstate NY as lousy with great diners! but i might be narrowly focused on 30s-40s prefab diners as design classics, and not so much on the actual food offerings.

and wow could i go for a slice of diner pie with one of those heavy mugs right now.

Man, I just had a couple cups of coffee out of one of those diner mugs (our fancy coffee place uses them) and it tasted so good. Their main blend kind of has that medium roast not too intense diner coffee quality but with more flavor.

Ok, maybe I was wrong about upstate diners I mean there's the Roscoe to start. I should have said there were none in the town I was in. Also, there's one every few miles on Long Island so most places feel like they don't have many in comparison. I loved all the train car ones in New England. Man, I really love diners.

It actually kind of drives me crazy that I live in a major university town and the coffee shops all close so damned early. After 6 pm every single one of them, save one Starucks location (which closes at 9), is closed. Where do students go to study late?

That is so weird. There were at least 3 open until 11 or 12 on the town I was in and they were filled with ppl studying or sometimes had open mic nights etc and like I said, I can think of a few in Boston/Cambridge. I wonder what's replaced them in places where they don't exist.

Student union? On campus places?

Must be, it always surprises me. I mean, even where I went to school in the middle of cornfields had multiple coffee shops open until 11 or midnight.

Looks like the Somerset Diner in NJ is still open 24-hours. I thought there were 3-4 diners open 24 hours back when I was in school, but maybe some of them were just open late and not 24/7.

I spent a lot of time in coffee shops (the non-diner kind) when I lived in SLC, where the majority of places I went to were open until late at night, which can probably be attributed to the non-drinking culture at large there. Then when I moved to Portland it was disappointing to find that hardly any coffee shops open past 6pm, and the one 24-hr place closed down a couple of years ago.

https://www.mrlocalhistory.org/excellent-diner/

Speaking of Jersey diners, here's the illustrated history of the Excellent Diner in Westfield NJ, a classic art deco 'railroad car" style establishment built in the '30s, where my parents hung out while they dating in the '50s. A few decades later it was sold and moved intact to Germany, and currently lives on at Euro Disney.

I'd love somewhere that stayed open late and wasn't a pub - just to hang out and drink (not booze) and read and, as doglatin says, not be at home. In the UK, it's a pub or nothing post 6pm. I've gone as far as planning to open my own just to have somewhere to go.

Nitro Cold Brew

I've been to a boardgames cafe a few times that does noes coffee and alcoholic drinks but is definitely not public at all. They stay open until midnight so that's a neat option every once in a while.

Xposts - I thought Mormons couldn't drink coffee hence the popularity of those crazy soda shops but that's neat that they had a lot there. I guess coffee shops do serve more than just coffee. I forget what the rule is but I think it's hot drinks that are forbidden rather than caffeine. Also I know not everyone in ut is Mormon it's just not somewhere I'd normally think of if we're talking coffee shops.

This is where you'd expect to walk in at the middle of the night and find chainsmoking beat poets, wiseguy movie characters, and people working night-shift jobs, ordering coffee at 3 AM.

Portland's iconic version of this used to be a place in NW Portland called Quality Pie. NB: the pies were of low quality.

xp I forgot about that but yeah coffee shops do have more than coffee... just me trying to find a reason why the majority of places there are open late while Portland doesn't really have that.

I'd love somewhere that stayed open late and wasn't a pub - just to hang out and drink (not booze) and read and, as doglatin says, not be at home. In the UK, it's a pub or nothing post 6pm. I've gone as far as planning to open my own just to have somewhere to go.

― I would prefer not to. (Chinaski), Thursday, 29 February 2024 21:50 (thirty-three minutes ago) link

A clean, well-lighted place, if you will

It would be kind of interesting to see an analysis of whether late-night third places have in fact declined (seems like probably) and if so, what the main contributing causes are. I imagine the internet and streaming are part of it, since there are just a lot more home options for night owls now. But they don't exactly scratch the same itch as sitting somewhere.

Is another factor that the slot third places occupy has moved forward to earlier in the day

slc still has a few late-night options but it's definitely moving towards closes-at-6-pm third wave places. you will never have been to a city that so desperately wants to be cool and so consistently falls short as salt lake because it has major identity angst.

I’m so used to going to shops in the morning that I’m sure I’d feel confused af if I went at night. Like cross-global jet lag

Of course you get cafes here in the UK, but they all largely close by 3 or 4pm unless they convert to dining places

Have you never been to a 24hr greasy spoon? Or the ones that open at about 4am? Mostly aimed at taxi drivers/construction workers or other working people who don't do a 9-5, they're also good for people who stay up too late boozing.

Not saying this to totally counteract your claim, btw - my impression is that they were fairly rare to begin with and almost extinct now - but more to say that you can find something similar to a late-night cafe in the UK. There are probably still a fair few of these in London.

I'm sure there are. It would be interesting to track them down and visit them.

There's one very old school greasy spoon diner in downtown Boston that is open 24 hours. I am so happy it's still there. I'm sure there are a few in NY. We used to go to one by Lincoln Centre a lot. The people watching in this places at 3am is the best.

those not this places

I bet at least 1% of the clientele at those places is freelance journalists writing a slightly edgy "slice of life" piece about the colorful cast of characters who come into a diner late at night

It would be funny if two were there at the same time and one accidentally wound up interviewing the other.

Man alive I was wondering if younger ppl are more likely to text or video call rather than meet up but idk I am not a young person (sad) and that seems like that can't be the reason but my first thought was that it had to be something to do with the internet or tech.

lol you're probably right. That and very/drunk stoned ppl.

I know this is about coffee but miss anything being open late. Overall I do think things close much earlier here. I'm going home next month and want to go to target at 9:30pm just be cause I can. Might even get a coffee too though the Starbucks might close earlier I can't remember.

It's one of the things I def don't like as much about the suburbs - stuff closing early. And the coffee place in my town closes RIDICULOUSLY early, like some days 1pm.

There is one nice, clean pub that's not bad as a hangout, but it's too small and local for me to just go alone -- you can't really hide there. I would feel awkward, and I also don't really like drinking alone.

Maybe the 90s were the pinnacle of US coffee house culture. I do think they're out there but maybe less so now.

https://i.ibb.co/chRdBLs/Screenshot-20240229-233039.png

Have you never been to a 24hr greasy spoon? Or the ones that open at about 4am? Mostly aimed at taxi drivers/construction workers or other working people who don't do a 9-5, they're also good for people who stay up too late boozing.

Not saying this to totally counteract your claim, btw - my impression is that they were fairly rare to begin with and almost extinct now - but more to say that you can find something similar to a late-night cafe in the UK. There are probably still a fair few of these in London.

― emil.y, Thursday, February 29, 2024 11:01 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

There were some late night cafe-type places around Finsbury Park, seemed to be for the Somalian or Eritrean communities. Not sure if they're still around or not. I'd see people in there from the top deck of the N29 so open pretty late I think.

great revive

what a generous post, Doctor Casino

aw shucks, thanks! been enjoying the revive overall.

Maybe the 90s were the pinnacle of US coffee house culture. I do think they're out there but maybe less so now.

The 90s were a golden age of independent coffee houses. Then Starbucks rolled out nationwide. The independents aren't completely extinct (especially if they were able to diversify into bakeries/cafes and/or get a liquor license), but there was considerable attrition.

There are quite a few decent independent coffee houses around me, but they have even briefer windows of operation. One closes at 2 pm! Another closes at 4! Like, not even the option to stop by after work for a cup and to read for a bit to decompress. I'd frequent them way more often if they were open a little later.

It actually kind of drives me crazy that I live in a major university town and the coffee shops all close so damned early. After 6 pm every single one of them, save one Starucks location (which closes at 9), is closed. Where do students go to study late?

― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, February 29, 2024 2:27 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

this is what i'm talking about. your options are usually denny's or a fast food restaurant. i love diners and have been coming to or living in the us for 20 years and the situation has deteriorated in that time. starbucks closes at 8 or 9pm, and the airpsace 3rd wave places close at 5 or so. late night diners not called denny's are very rare. a bit city might have one 24 hour diner. staggered by how early everything closes on the west coast. nyc has more options, but late night/early morning diners are not _that_ much more common in nyc than greasy spoons in london. they keep closing.

https://scx2.b-cdn.net/gfx/news/2019/5c937fd872171.jpg

not sure if phones caused third places like coffee shops to close, or their closing drove social stuff online, but seems like a feedback loop at this point.

lots of research on this general trend predates phones, so it's not _just_ phones, e.g. https://www.headhousebooks.com/book/9780743203043.

Me.

In the coffee shop I'm always posting about in the CVS thread, the owner had some people behind the counter today looking at various things. I asked him a few minutes later if he was selling. Yes--turns out it's been on the market for a year. "I want to retire, Phil--I want to spend all my time in coffee shops playing on my laptop" (gives me a friendly pat on the shoulder).

He's not wrong.

vegetarian sandwich with "seitan/satan" pun in the name

“Our Seitanic Majesties’ Request”

*opens coffee shop just so I can put that on the menu*