The Trimethyldioxypurist Drives Thru
Ah, the inevitable holiday travel. What's an SFist to do but write somethin' anyway? Well, hey, man -- they got coffee in Boston too.
Does the concept of a drive-thru window for your morning coffee sound odd?
Not so odd in Beantown.
It's an interesting juxtaposition.
The Boston and San Francisco areas have many similarities -- they are both port cities with prominent Italian neighborhoods, politics that trend toward the liberal, and a bevy of great museums, learning institutions, and restaurants. Oh, and both had some pretty high-profile stories regarding same-sex marriage in 2004.
Not so similar? The coffee. And how they drink it. At least how a great number of them do.
While most have probably heard of Dunkin' Donuts, you may not know of its prominence on the East Coast. Despite the name, baked goods take a back seat to the coffee, which Dunkin' Donuts sells both by the cup or in bulk. In fact, its Web site proclaims that, "Dunkin' Donuts is America's largest retailer of coffee-by-the-cup, serving nearly 1 billion cups of brewed coffee each year."
Of the interesting differences between Dunkin' Donuts and a cafe closer to what we are familiar with in the 'Sco:
1) The coffee -- they definitely go for the "weaker, but more of it" philosophy, and offer it in huge cups that you could probably stick an entire donut into.
2) As mentioned above -- a drive-thru!?!? While not every single location has one, many, many do.
3) And, last, the preparation -- evidently, the fact that we put our own creamer and sweetener into our coffee makes us suckers. At Dunkin' Donuts, they do it for you -- as in "I'd like a large coffee with milk and two equals," or "I'd like a regular" (a.k.a. cream & sugar).
Okay, so while we've established that coffee/caffeine-laden drinks are used for more than a morning quickstart, that jolt of java to start or sustain your day seems to be the primary use. Even so, there was some trimethyldioxy-confusion -- are the folks in New England so much more in a rush than we on left coast that they need coffee jerks to put the cream in? So rushed that they can't pahhk the cahh first -- that they need a drive-thru?
Well, guess what? Then the snow storm hit the day after Christmas, and the reasons behind the three main differences were clear.
1) When it's that cold and nasty out, you want more hot liquid, not less -- strength of brew be damned.
2) When it's that cold and nasty out you don't want to leave your damned car if possible, thus the drive-thru.
3) And, finally, when it's that cold and nasty out, who has time to futz with cream and sugar? With taking off a lid? You probably don't want to take your gloves off. You definitely just want to keep moving and get where you're going.
Would a drive-thru for a coffee joint work out here? We're not sure; it's this SFist's opinion that those who would use it are probably already patrons of places where coffee is an afterthought, like Mickey D's or similar. And such a place would likely miss out on the rather prominent Muni/Bart crowd.
But here in SF, you never know.
Mad props to sister-in-law Cindie for driving in crappy, slippery, cold, and snowy conditions, which allowed for both of the pics above.