I was sitting inside the child friendly Ginger and White in London when I read that Ralf Rüller had banned prams in his coffee shop. “Big deal!” I thought and soon tweeted – it’s not like prams fit in the teeny tiny Augustrasse shop. Only much later, while I sat with a group of bristling mothers, did I understand that there was a new bigger shop, The Roastery and that it also did not allow prams. Nor did they let you use their toilet, allow dogs, provide sugar, use soya milk and if you wanted to use your computer – you had to wait in line for the one table where it was allowed.
“Do you know that they deleted all the negative comments off their Facebook page?” one said “I mean if you are going to do social media, then you have to do social media!”
Even more confounding was the chosen location; the Mitte end of Schönhauser Allee – the other end of which is Prenzlauerberg. Prenzlauerberg. As in the bastion of designer babies and prams. The styling of the babies and The Barn is nearly identical with a preference for wood (Prenzlauerberg babies don’t play with plastic), clothing in muted hues, even for the girls (especially for the girls) and no sugar allowed (The Barn because it thinks that sugar would ruin a perfectly balanced coffee and the parents because they are trying to channel Gwenyth Paltrow). Not allowing prams in that part of town is like banning gambling in Las Vegas: absurd.
I set out for a weekend coffee in my SUV (3 kids people, need a big car) with Layla in the back so as to avoid the “what to do with the pram” conundrum.
There housed in a now defunct pharmacy was an extremely large coffee shop. I could have easily driven the Lexus up to the counter and placed my order without making a significant dent in the enormous space. Clearly the pram ban is not a space issue.
The set up is meticulous. The milking stools are lined up straight, with their legs crossed in a way that makes me think of how women used to be taught to cross their ankles demurely in finishing schools. There is a young man exerting tremendous concentration over each cup of coffee. He seems to be weighing every loaded portafiler then scooping out minute quantities of ground beans. I have a lot of time to observe all of this because perfection takes a while.
At some point, a customer returning his empty cup drops a balled up paper napkin onto the floor, Rüller, who is operating the roaster, hones in on it immediately. He can’t leave the roaster (I know this because he’s already warned me in an overly weary tone that I must mind my child and that should she trespass into the space he will not be responsible because his first priority is the beans) but I can feel his irritation.
It lays there for maybe 5 minutes, all the while Rüller is shooting it harried glances. Until finally he catches the eye of one of his cowgirls, holds it, then casts his eyes down to the ground. She bends and covertly scoops it up. Read more of this post
I got a big kick out of the post I wrote on The Barn because so many of you left comments. I like when this blog generates a dialogue and I get a chance to exchange thoughts directly with some of you.
It’s a very different landscape in Berlin these days. There are plenty of great coffee places around. They get coffee. They have a slick machine. Square Mile or Monmouth beans. The baristas with the trendy hair cuts that waffle on to each other about the beans and the tiny nuances they are detecting. And they are nice to you. You don’t have to fiddle nervously at the bar, wondering if you are going to get the lingo right? If they can smell the instant coffee you had 3 days ago when you were absolutely dying for some caffeine and your grinder was on the fritz (Really? You have a grinder? You’re such a coffee nerd.)
I mean – sometimes you just want a coffee? Am I right? A good cup of coffee, somewhere nice. You don’t want to feel like you are being screened to join your local Scientology branch. Read more of this post
