David on Entitled Coffee Drinkers

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

“I work in a coffee shop and I think that there is a unique sense of community among DC coffee shops. I work at Peregrine Espresso on the Hill and I used to work at Murky Coffee, which no longer exists. I have friends in all different coffee shops and I’ve met a lot of interesting people that way, people who live in D.C. for all different reasons. I think that everyone is pretty close and has fun with each other.

“DC has an…interesting customer base at coffee shops. Umm, God, I can’t remain anonymous anymore. Fuck it, I’m moving to Paris…people in DC are really into being entitled! I think that’s because there is such high turnover, people who just moved here get really high on the fact that like ‘I live in D.C. and I work on the Hill and make no money, but whatever, like, I’m the shit’ and they bring that to their coffee shop staff sometimes and they are…dicks.

People who just moved here get really high on the fact that, like, ‘I live in DC and I work on the Hill and make no money, but whatever, like, I’m the shit.’

“But that said, there are also really amazing customers in D.C. for all of the really, really, really awful ones. I’ve had some great customers too who have been super nice and supportive and, like, interested in what you do. And the worst one I ever had was from Brooklyn, so whatever.

“In most cases, you try and kill them with kindness. I think that there is a fine line between someone who is being a dick, like, just to be a dick and someone who is being a dick out of ignorance or something like that. Some people come into a store to pick a fight with someone. I don’t know why that is in D.C. To those people you just have to say, ‘We don’t need your business. Could you please leave?’ Those people, you don’t let them get you down.”

Read reviews of D.C.’s best coffee and tea spots here.

Shawn Parell and I conducted this interview.