the end of an era
an extensive review by an ex barista
Time always seems to slow down a bit during the two weeks leading up to new years. It’s like everyone’s holding tight onto the last bit of this year and acknowledging some sort of magic in the air. Though I’m not great at new year’s resolutions, I have come to seriously treat the shift from december to january as a push for fresh starts and transitions. Last year it was the beginning of my cafe part-time job and this year it’s the end of it - on friday, I worked my last shift at the cafe. Now I’m back at home in texas, indulging in my mom’s cooking and three too many tv shows.
A rather absurd situation arose at the cafe a few weeks ago. It was around 8pm, two hours or so after I arrived. Despite it being friday night, there were a steady stream of customers coming in for coffee, and I was happy to be making so many hot lattes even during a bar shift.
People came in and out, squeezing past each other in the narrow area by the door and between wall and barista counter. I was focused on taking orders and making drinks, but I noticed in my periphery how the door was swinging open again and again with the inflow and outflow of customers. The door was a wooden frame surrounding a glass belly, matching perfectly with the rest of the wooden storefront H had gotten renovated just earlier this year. Everything about its appearance was quaint and pleasantly eye-catching on the otherwise dreary street, but the door was missing something in its design to make it swing back into place so that every time someone opened the door to exit the cafe, it would stay ajar in a 50 degree angle. The december breeze and conversations of by-passers on the street would make its way inside the cafe until a kind customer sitting by the entrance could pull the door back or one of us staff caught a chance to run around and shut it again.
The door was in such a half-open state while I was taking a new togo order for a lady who just walked in when in the middle of a sentence I see over her shoulder that the door is quivering. In what felt like bloopers playing in slow motion, I turned as she turned as everyone in that narrow strip of real estate turned around to pin their eyes on the great outdoors of NYC chinatown and the wooden door as it swayed with the wind, detached from the hinge in the top right corner, trembled for a second suspended between sky and cement, and finally crashed dramatically to the sidewalk in a tremendous accident of shattered glass and splintered wood.
I turned to H and almost wanted to laugh; since working at the cafe, I had been inoculated against surprises. No door? No problem. Luckily, no one was hurt and aside from the poor lady whose order I was taking who had just the luck to stand right by the cursed door and have to question “did i do that?”, business continued as normal. Well, as normal as it can be when the front of the cafe was effectively just two windows and a few strips of wood. As I handled the cafe business, explaining to every new customer that “yes, we are open and sorry, we had a… situation earlier”, H cleaned up the glass outside and went around town calling up people and going to Home Depot in search of a way to close the shop later tonight and operate the cafe for the next few days, at least until the door could be fixed.
The most absurd thing about this episode is it may not even be the most absurd incident I’ve encountered at the cafe. There was the time some friends came as customers and we ended up karaoke-ing past closing time with this southern family who would only sing very interesting songs none of us knew. And when I witnessed a first date between a Harvard girl and Yale guy gone horribly wrong so much so the Harvard girl walked out while Yale guy was in the bathroom; Yale guy was a trooper though cause he not only paid for their whole tab but also ordered another drink for just himself and then made friends with the neighboring table.
I don’t want to inaccurately deliver the message that this is what working at any cafe is like, because really I think it’s the charm and chaos exclusively reserved for small local businesses, and especially one rooted deep in a culturally vibrant community like chinatown. As much as I complained about the lack of structure and standardized procedures, I think it’s also this flexibility that made my experience so whimsical and memorable.
Most of the time, when my cafe “side hustle” comes up in conversation, people react in a “oh wow! that’s so cool!” kind of way. And it has been “cool” in many ways, but a lot of what doesn’t come up in conversation is how incredibly unglamorous and humbling most hours put in have been. My first week working I cleaned up someone’s vomit from their glasses and around the toilet. I’ve washed so many dishes I questioned all of my decisions. I went home after most shifts exhausted and smelling like frying oil. Often I would have to sit outside for a couple minutes after a shift just to remind myself to breathe slowly and drink water before heading home. And sometimes I face a certain sense of shame that shouldn’t belong to me.
I was talking to an acquaintance once and working at a cafe came up. After the usual remarks of “oh wow! how do you find time? so cool!”, she mentioned how she had wanted to work at a cafe or boba shop a few years ago but her mom didn’t let her. Her mom had said “we didn’t send you to college to serve others and make minimum wage”.
The thing about working any service job, and especially food service, is that inevitably, the power dynamic is not in your favor. You learn to serve and smile and apologize. You realize that no task is beneath you and no person is above you. Granted, I didn’t pick up the cafe job for the money, and I’ve been lucky enough to have mostly only interacted with very kind people during my time. But nevertheless, I learned how to let go of vain pride to make room for dignity.
Among the thousands of people that I’ve spoken to at the cafe, there are a few who I’ll remember for a while.
There’s T, a tall blonde guy with glasses and a geometric-looking tattoo on his elbow who I saw more often than some of my close friends in the city. I’d make his americano (dark) as soon as he walked in. A middle school physics teacher and advisor for the dungeons and dragons and woodworking clubs at school, he’s the type of science teacher I wish I had. T told me stories from his travels: when he made no sleeping arrangements while backpacking the Irish countryside and found abandoned farmer huts to stay in and about the boisterous motorcyclists he drank with in one of the bad parts of Beijing. On my last day, T stopped by an extra time and handed me a goodbye letter :’)
M, the owner of a skateboard and apparel brand, was the first regular I spoke to and the only who gave me a nickname - “hey liv!”. He’d cruise in with his board and sit for a salad, or sometimes, just get an oat cortado togo. He gifted me a skateboard after the cafe’s 2nd anniversary party when he discovered I could successfully balance on his down the street. I always felt that despite how cheerful his greetings were, M’s expression told me he had something extra on his mind. I never got to ask what it was.
It took me long to learn N’s name, despite him being one of the most regular regulars, but I remember when I learned it - on a chill friday night when he came to close his tab, he said bye to H and gave me a fist bump too. N rocks a mailman aesthetic, shoulder length hair, and the self-aware, relaxed aura of someone who’s grown enough to inarguably classify as a real adult but still young enough to pass as a young adult. We have him to thank for helping acquire wood planks and temporarily stitching up the door when it broke.
J - a 19-year old who came in basically every friday night really just for the ~vibes (and some tea), and who shocks everyone when they find out he’s 19. Because you see, he’s a restaurant owner on the upper east side with a little stubble and he talks and talks about personal finance and miscellaneous social phenomena like he’s lived double his age.
More than anything, the people I’ve met at the cafe have shown me that there is no one right answer. They’ve shown me that it’s a big world with a lot of curious and beautiful people. They’ve fortified my trust in others.
The end of this era played out rather ordinarily. I wouldn’t have wanted anything dramatic, and wasn’t even sure if I should acknowledge to the other staff that this was my last day at the cafe. I felt it would’ve been horrific if H and the others made a big deal out of saying goodbye, so I’m glad I went to work like normal and more or less worked a bar shift like any other bar shift. To end the night we said cheers with some beer and wine and took some group photos, and I think that was just right. But when I think back on how much my life and mindset has changed these past 11 months just because of this part-time job, no closing or “last shift” would have been too remarkable.
This is the end of this era, but I’m not sure what the start of the next will look like. I do think though, that I’m not done with the barista life just yet.
For you and me both, I hope 2024 is full of even more remarkable experiences, delightful people and world and self discovery! And if anyone from the cafe is reading this, thanks for the good times and the hardship bonding <3 I will be back for coffee!!
love, oz
More ounces:
if you made it this far here’s a winter playlist for you
my mom dug up this old camcorder. the resolution is awful, it’s held together by tape and the zoom only works sometimes. i love it. i’m going to see if i can make use of it.
on that note i’m trying to revive my youtube channel! Here’s a 20min pov of one of my last cafe shifts