There was a time when I drank most of my coffee at a place called Tastee Donuts. Those were the best coffee drinking years of my life.
When you asked for a cup of coffee it was brought to you in a plain white cup, on a saucer, with a smile from a big lady named Shareese...and the pleasant sound of a metal spoon clinking against ceramic.
The chatter was constant...starting as a murmur at the other end of the L-shaped bar, babbling at the corner, words and snippets, then pieces of conversation until they were full blown and an amusing distraction from the crossword puzzle or a genuine threat to draw you in. It ran like that from one end to the other and back again...punctuated by the constant clank of spoons against cups.
The counter was cracked linoleum...white with silver wood grain pattern and flecks of glitter. The seats were chrome wrapped, red vinyl topped, spinning stools...and there were brass ash trays. Smoke obscured everything but the noise, and those who weren't smoking were too busy stuffing their faces with fried bread and sugar to worry about it.
It was a DONUT shop...the coffee was Community Coffee and it came from a can...it was a Southern place.
It's a Quizno's now. If you want a cup of coffee you've got a choice between a prissy national chain or one that's owned locally. I don't have to describe these places...you've all been in 'em and they all look the same..they are all the same.
I'm immune to 'em now...whatever just give me a "small dark-roast to go." I've learned that even at Starbucks this will get you a small cup of black coffee. My Daddy on the other hand is not so familiar with these places.
Every once in a while me and him will end up in one of these cafes...like yesterday. Normally he insists on paying...but I do the ordering. It's not a plan of attack or anything. I just know these places and I know my Daddy...and instinctually I know that the less contact they have with one another the better. If all he has to do is hand over three bucks...he'll be fine. If he has to answer a series of meaningless, but increasingly baffling questions...he wont be.
Somehow he beat me to the counter yesterday but it wasn't until I heard him say...
"Do you have a styrofoam cup back there?"
...that's when I realized we were headed for trouble.
"Well," says the squirrely fella behind the counter, "we have paper cups with.."
"That'll do just fine."
It's cheaper if you use a ceramic cup..so if you tell them you want coffee they start in with the difference in price and bah. Once that's settled you get a stream of nonsensical questions about what kind of coffee you want...
"Would you like our seasons jambo java medium snowflake or.."
"Say what now?"
It was time for me to act..."two small dark-roasts please...to go."
"OK"
We got our coffee, he paid...confrontation with the ridiculous current state of the world put off for another day.
Tastee's was a very relaxing, comfortable, familiar bit of cultural affirmation...Lord help us if that's what these places are meant to be.
I'm pretty sure this is a pet hate across the globe. Our greasy spoon caf's, full of horrendously oily food, red and white check table cloths and tea served from a stainless steel tea pots, a are slowly being gobbled up starbucks, neros, costas, you name it, all full of numb nuts thinking culture has finally arrived to the barren north and sitting on a faux leather setee whilst they read the guadian, thinking £3.40 for a mocha-choca-wanka-late is value.
ReplyDeleteIf I want coffee, just a normal coffee, with or without milk I have to ask for an Americano, thats the 'standard' term over here... Americano... wow, what happened to 'Coffee' that was a good name too?
I feel a song coming on :D
Weatherspoons (cheap pub chain over here) see the irony in this their menu says, and I quote:
ReplyDelete"Americano- a posh word for normal coffee".
You right, you always know what you will get a least with a generic pub/restaurant in a town you don't know... and that ends up being both the very best, and very worst thing about them.
Maybe they have a sense of humor...it's the only way I can live knowing such a thing is going on.
ReplyDeleteIt is comforting...when you pull into a motel at 9pm...to know there's a Cracker Barrel next door.
I agree wholeheartedly with everything said above. When a cup of coffee costs more than a decent glass of wine and you have to learn a new dialect to order it, it's just one more sign that the world we live in has gone slightly mental.
ReplyDeleteSoon to be lobotomized.
ReplyDelete