Washington, DC, has an endless appetite for coffee. While there are tons of coffee shops downtown, it’s not always easy to get a seat in one. And the more photogenic the shop, the more crowded it is. For if there’s one thing that millennials like more than coffee, it’s pictures of themselves drinking coffee.
Case in point: La Colombe. Super-cute shop with great coffee. However, on the weekends, all the chairs and tables are taken by young people taking selfies with soy lattes. Shakes first at cloud! If there’s one thing I can’t stand is getting a cappuccino and then finding every table taken by chatty youths. I prefer to drink my coffee in silence, possibly with a book.
Fortunately, this year’s Coffeeneuring Challenge (where you bike to seven coffee shops over seven weeks) includes an important rule change – weekday rides are now allowed! Coffeeneuring is no longer just a weekend activity but can occur on any day of the week.
So, on an overcast Friday afternoon, I took advantage of the new proviso to visit La Colombe in Chinatown. There are three La Colombes in DC but I guessed the Eye Street venue would be the least crowded. Two miles later, I was enjoying a simple mug of coffee, able to read in peace while sipping a dark roast. And when I came out, the sun had emerged for the first time in days. It’s a coffeeneuring miracle!
This trip got me wondering: I used the Spotcycle app before I left home to make sure that the neighborhood Capital Bikeshare station had bikes. Wouldn’t it be great if there was something similar for coffee shops? There should be an app that tells me which coffee shops have available seating. Sensors could be attached to chairs and the data could be reported real-time, like bikeshare does. I’m sure some nerds could figure it out, fueled by enough coffee.
