I have a complaint. I’ve just come back from a low-rest, caffeine-fueled tear through The City That Never Sleeps, so maybe I’m just a little bitter. But like that ominous perkolator full of bittering, day-old joe, there’s probably some good to be found in what I have to share.
Charlotte needs more coffee shops. There just aren’t many options. The espresso bars, French bistros, and modern industrial shops that we do have are excellent, but I find myself face to face with the same baristas too often.
The growing trend in our city seems to be the home brew. Buy a fresh pound of beans from your favorite local roaster—there are many, and I’ve yet to find a mediocre one—then grind it, press it, and pour it. I love the house-filling aroma of a freshly-ground cup of home coffee as much as the next bespectacled snob, but that French press or pour-over is imbued with so much more novelty in the right cafe.
We love coffee shops for a number of reasons: the ambiance, the seating options, the inspired interiors. Generally, though, we linger in the cafe for the same reason we hit the bar. We like to be out, to be part of our community somehow. We want to be seen drinking coffee. And in this city, we need more venues in which to do it.
