yeah. i worked for the "rainbow cafe". I got free rent and ate there once a day. woo! small shops like that are sooooooooogrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat. and the charm was sooooooooo kewl, too. cups and saucers that didn't match -- from the salvation army. i don't know about anyone else, but it was a thrill a minute to have a depression glass green sauce upon which i perched a melamine orange cup for my coffee. that was the kewlest. the chips and cracks in the porcelain -- THE awesomest. even better was when i slipped and sprained my ankle -- no health insurance, no workers' comp, no $$ to even pay for crutches to limp around.
independent coffee shops are *so* neato!
there's this little back shop around the block. i thought, oh how awesome! i'd spent my childhood riding my bike to this bakery with the world's best cheese danish, which i would get for my mother every sunday so she we could read the NYT together. i ducked inside for my birthday, to buy myself something. long story short, i ended up baking my boss her going away cake, instead of ordering it there. why? because they just order in everything from some chain, save for the cinnamon rolls, which she bakes herself. everything else? it's ordered from Maines and is just given the appearance of being made on site. i can't stand mix-made cake, so i made it myself. but had i been rilly rilly busy, i would have freakin' lived.
aside from which, newsflash! so what if a coffee shop isn't starbucks. everything in it is *still* from a freakin' chain food service provider.
related news: we have freakin' starbucks at work. verona blend. they sell it in bags sized for a commercial, 14cup coffee maker.