Cari-who? Coffee
The cozy MN coffee shop is totally non-existent in the town I work in. What was once a Jitter's (or Coffee Zone or Caribou or Daily Grind, or any other cutesier coffee name) run, is now a Argento's run.
Argento's, my friends, is a place that advertises, in neon, its strombollis and grinders. Its deli counter culture makes me long for those comfy couches the color and consistency of a Carmel Frap.... and also, at times, containing some carmel frap.
Alternately, this place has very stiff plastic booths and the only thing on the menu that might resemble a creamy coffee drink is the cheese-wiz that is pumped onto the "steaks." The Philly Cheese Steaks that is. You want yours wiz-wit or wiz-wit out?
This post was instigated by my dinner break tonight. I sat and ate salad with chicken that belonged in a bucket and croutons that resembled left over pizza crust. I pulled a book from my purse and began to read a bit. There was a family with a whole herd of children waiting to take home two big-ass pizzas for $10. The kids were racing laps around my center booth, and only stopped once so that one of the kids could look sadly at me and ask his father, "Daddy, is she okay?"
I peeked up over the edge of my book and smiled, but my coffee shop behavior clearly translated as sad and weird.
There is an interesting crew of old retired men that meet at Argento's for their daily dose of banter. Should you go in on your lunch break to try and catch up on a few chapters, you will certainly be drawn in to their conversation, if only by eavesdropping.
It looks like I'm going to have to find some coffee-to-go, and sit in a park somewhere if I really want to find some comfort on my breaks.
A good coffee-to-go option here, so far, is from a bizarro gas station called Wawa... which I may or may not have talked about before.
It is kind of like the Target of the gas station world. You go for one thing, gas, and unless you pay at the pump, you are surely leaving with a whole slew of things you didn't intent to purchase.
For example, fresh brewed coffee in house, dark, vanilla, hazelnut, or Irish cream. With corresponding creams, might I add. A milk shake machine, which allows you to stir one up fresh, a sandwich counter, with more steaks and grinders, a fresh hot pretzel section, a refrigerated section containing fresh fruit bowls , hummus wraps, and veggie trays, not to mention your run-of-the-mill snacks, like cokes and sunflower seeds.
But in order to get to this place you have to jump onto the highway.
As for now... I will probably still stop into Argento's out of desperation. But I need to find out what a grinder is, just to be sure I'm not hanging out in a place of unsavoryness.