I grew up in a family fixed on “first-wave” coffee. Naturally in the 1980s nobody labeled it as such, they just drank Folgers, and it was consumed as a morning ritual, often reheated in the microwave mid-afternoon, and a habit I promised myself never to partake.
Only a few short years after my silly declaration, my high school friends and later college friends made coffee shops our destination. There were no Starbucks at the time, and many of the cafes were re-invented old, converted homes. Coffee for me wasn’t a morning beverage; it was an evening hangout. My friends and I listened to great local musicians, played Risk for hours on end, and sank into comfortable sofas with our waist-tied flannels draped under our legs. We made memories, memories of lasting joy, but on all those visits I had never tried the infamous cup of joe. That came later.
It was 1996, I was attending college in San Luis Obispo, CA, and I had a college paper due the next morning, and of course…I had not even started an outline! My roommate suggested a coffee and told me of the “Caramello,” at Uptown Espresso on Higuera Street in downtown SLO. So it happened, they had the gas fire lit, an empty table, and a large 16oz latte with whipped cream, dripping caramel sauce, and my eyes opened.
It was caramel for a long time, but now my personal preference is coffee with no sugar or syrup, just a cortado if I can get it, or a latte with complexity, but clarity of flavor and a clean long-lasting finish. Yet, that beverage in 1996 grabbed everything a coffee shop was for me from the previous four years and bridged it over the next three decades across six different countries and two different continents of more papers, writing, new friends, creative expressions, books, games for hours, swing dances, even naps, and eventually dates with my wife. The cafe for me has always been a place across our entire globe where people on any occasion and of any expression find belonging. We can meet anyone in a cafe or behind the bar no matter what their background or demographic. The stories abound if you lean in and listen.
So…why a cafe? Because, it’s been the place I have been finding my way back to everyday for more than thirty years. I want to share it with you; and I want to serve you that same lasting joy.