This hurts. I want to write a rave. But Andytown has me feeling so very Get-Off-My-Lawn. Every new space in the city is now done in "Apple Store Chic", it seems. There are lines out the door here, apparently often. There is a 4.5 star Yelp rating. They're giving the kids what they want. Which appears to be lukewarm coffee and lukewarm music.
"Love Shack" by the B-52s. Please don't. It's my day off. I'm not even a little bit drunk. And when 50% of your baked goods are gluten free, there's no pretense of irony. No number of tattooed baristas can fix that. That's just math.
When we headed west on the scooter, bundled inside four layers against the wet cloud forest of May, we were prepared to feel the sour twinge of shelling out $20 for a caffeine injection. Yet were also prepared to enjoy a delicious overpriced elixir, then grudgingly admit to being just as susceptible to bourgeois cafe fare as anyone else.
It's that second part - that didn't happen. Artful milk paintings aside, these lattes were sad in the pants. They were the temperature of hospital food. They were suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder. Coffee in the Sunset needs to be more resilient to the fog. It needs to be there for us when the sun isn't.
Then, the bread. It has acres of menu real estate devoted to it. It comes with butter. This is all very promising. But it tastes like first wave health food. Like that stuff that early progressive moms served in the late 80s, just about the time people started suspecting that Count Chocula might not really be part of a balanced breakfast. This bread makes mouth like desert mouth. Again, I am sad.
The garden out back is darling. There are well-behaved doggies and a flowering plant and it's peaceful and everything is very clean. Everyone loves this place. Everyone's very happy to be here. I know, I know. It's not you, Andytown. It's me.
Comments