N.Y. Journal: An independent cup of coffee | WORLD
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N.Y. Journal: An independent cup of coffee


Would you prefer to live in a place with more McDonald's or Starbucks? The Pew Forum asked this and said the answer reveals the way Americans typecast themselves: "While both are iconic American brands, each appeals to different lifestyles, budgets, and yes, even political ideologies."

Overall, McDonald's won 43 percent to 35 percent, but if you break down the numbers, you'll find the stereotypes about "latte-drinking liberals" prevailing. Self-described liberals favored Starbucks 46 percent to 33 percent, while conservatives favored McDonald's 50 percent to 28 percent. Moderates fall in between, with 44 percent favoring McDonald's and 37 percent going for Starbucks. Protestants and Catholics favor McDonald's, while the religiously unaffiliated choose Starbucks.

This is why Gawker.com said New York Fashion Week's image would be tarnished by letting McDonald's---"a mass purveyor of grease and corn syrup"---provide its official coffee: "How many 'tastemakers and celebrities' would be caught dead with a McDonald's cup in their hands?"

So, what if you hate both McDonald's and Starbucks and favor independent coffee shops with mismatched furniture and eclectic art? My editors have joked that I have the "coffee shop beat" since I wrote about one of my favorite New York coffee houses, Think Coffee, in "Mister, can you spare a latte?" and about a community that saved its coffee shop in "No little people."

Independent coffee shops do what neither McDonald's nor Starbucks does: foster community instead of catering to the frantic, fast-food pace of modern, urban life, and foster individuality instead of slavishly serving the stereotype that everyone is the same---and liberals drink lattes while less pretentious people drink drip.

In independent coffee shops, people get their coffee in actual mugs and sit down in actual chairs, and look at art or create it on laptops, and have actual conversations. I see the same people every time I go to the Cocoa Bar, where the walls seem actually painted in chocolate, or the Tea Lounge, where I see the same writers or moms with children on play dates each day. The Tea Lounge sponsors a Kid's Sing-Along every Wednesday, when "The wheels on the bus" and "Old McDonald has a farm" fill up the coffee shop. You don't get that at Starbucks.

Independent coffee shops don't cater to conformity. You can see it in the furniture, where each mismatched piece often stands on its own, with no historical or aesthetic connection to the one beside it. You can see it in the art---by definition an expression of individuality. On the walls of Think Coffee right now you can see collages of black and white photographs on one wall, photographs of artistically defaced subway ads on the next, and on the third, a violin given insect legs to look like a beetle.

To me, it's the difference between an actual mug and a Styrofoam cup. A Styrofoam cup says you prioritize disposability and mobility. An actual mug says you're sitting down---not running out---and when you leave, you're coming back.


Alisa Harris Alisa is a WORLD Journalism Institute graduate and former WORLD reporter.

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