A very funny essay about the trials and tribulations involved in opening and running a rather twee little coffee shop in New York City.
I loved this paragraph:
Pastries, for instance, are a monetary black hole unless you bake them yourself. We started out by engaging a pedigreed gentleman baker with Le Bernardin on his résumé. Hercule, as I’ll call him, embodied every French stereotype in existence: He was jovial, enthusiastic, rude, snooty, manic-depressive, brilliant, and utterly unreliable. His croissants were buttery, flaky, not too big, and $1.25 wholesale. We sold them for $2 and threw away roughly 50 percentin other words, we were making a negative quarter on each croissant. After a couple of months of this, we downgraded to a more Americanized version of the croissant (vast and pillowy). The new croissants ran 90 cents each and made us feel vaguely dirty. We sold them for the same $2. Ironically, their elephantine size meant that every time someone ordered a croissant with cheese, we had to load it up with twice as much Gruyère.
Every word in that article is spot-on.
Ooo, I forgot to tell you! I WENT TO A STARBUCKS (and lost a little bit of my soul.)
Whilst in Little Rock shopping, I stopped in and bought a Eggnog Chai Latte and a Cinnamon Twist. Total bill: $6.25! Ye gads. We done gone all citified.
bingley – I know, right? I love his point about how it wasn’t about being a business-owner – because for him there was no romance in owning a laundromat or something like that. It was this fantasy about having a perpetual dinner party. hahahahaha
Lisa –
Oh boy. Look out!!
Hopefully it gave them a new lasting appreciation for how hard the folks in those little shops actually have to work to survive, that it’s not some fantasy cafe full of romance and esprit.
i loved the line about how he despised the guy who’d come in and camp out with his laptop! hahahaha!
Lisa, going to a Starbucks is completely forgivable; why, I’ve even done it myself (but the next time I do I will make sure to have a spoon with me, as I hate how those stupid wooden stirrers they have make my coffee taste like wood).
Ordering anything with the word ‘chai’ in its name, however, is not. ;)
Bingley – right!! hahaha “Don’t even get me started on people with laptops”
Lisa – so did you get a grande or a venti?
I always get so baffled and intimidated when ordering at Starbucks. I say I want a “large” and just let THEM do the translation.
Some Starbucks I’ve been to won’t even let you order a “large.” You HAVE TO SAY “Venti” or they just won’t give it to you. What’s with those people?
The guy went “What size?” and I POINTED TO A CUP and said, “Uh, that size” because I am, apparently, retahded in the way of the Starbucks.
And to complete the picture of me pointing to cups because I don’t know what in the hell “Grande” or “Venti” mean, my husband asked them for just a cup, so he could use it for a spit cup. (Yes, he dips Skoal. It is gross. He is a redneck. Let’s move on.)
They practically flung my Eggnog Chai Latte (which was EXXXXXCELLENT, btw, like a hot eggnoggy milkshake.) at me in their hurry to rush such trash out of their establishment. They didn’t even give me one of those little sleeves on my cup so I could hold it without burning my hands!
Bastards.
I admit to finally succumbing to the pressure to use Starbucks’s stupid size descriptions. Such is life in the mall. But on the inside, I can’t step into one of those places without thinking about this:
http://www.laserp.com/fun_stuff/star_schmucks.htm
http://www.illwillpress.com/coffeehouse.html
Ah, the star schmucks is the best!
Lisa –
Your husband is my hero for requesting a spit cup from Starbucks. That so rocks.
That really is beautiful. I wish it had been filmed…
Sheila,I’ve been reading your posts for awhile. I know you are overloaded with books at the moment but I think you would like this: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Johnathan Safran Foer I’m only on page 93, but I can’t help thinking that you would really love it. Take care, J
“Don’t get me started on people with laptops.”
Then I’ll start!
Mr. Barristo: I’m the guy with the laptop, who comes in and buys one of your $3.50 Mochas and your $5 sandwiches, and usually washes it down with a $1.80 coffee and often as not a $1.50 cookie, while I bill a couple of hours. If I didn’t come in with my laptop and occupy one of your empty seats, that’s $11.80 you’d have to be getting by selling crank out of your supply closet.
So no, pallie – DON’T start on me.
(Unless you were talking about the guy with the laptop who nurses a cup of joe for three hours. Objection noted.)
(feeling a tad peevish today)…
Jesus, Mitch, no shit. Chill out, man!
I’m with Mitch on this one. As long as I’m eating / drinking, what’s the difference if I’m reading a book, or reading work-related .pdf files on my laptop? There’s more reading for me to do in a day than I have hours in a week, and most of it hits me by email. I assume this guy does not provide wi-fi access.
John – He sure doesn’t anymore. His cafe closed.
Oh, and just for the record: I don’t disagree with Mitch. I just thought he over-reacted. He shouted “pallie” at the man. I linked to the thing not because I AGREE with it, but because I thought his writing was funny.
Yeah, the writier was probably reacting to NY “professionals” who sit down with a $1.50 cup of joe and go over contracts on their laptop for two hours. I think we courteous laptop users get the spillover from jerks who do that, complain about lack of free wi-fi, and ask to use a power outlet when they don’t manage their battery life.