House Blend varies in flavor from day to day. The customers don't know this, but whatever coffee is left over in the other thermoses from the previous night gets dumped into the House Blend thermos. Sometimes the coffee is more Endless Summer Night and less Cafe du Mysterie, it just depends on what was hot the day before.
French Vanilla next and a flavor of the week on the end. During holidays I might have Nutmeg Cinamon or Wassle coffee. I roast the beans myself in my San Franciscan. The machine is about the size of a Volkswagen Bug and costs about the same. Sacks of coffee surround it like sandbags lining a bunker. Keeps the kids off of it.
The customers are ok. The paying ones. Regulars somehow manage to skip dropping money at the register. One guy, we call him Crazy Dave, brings his own special mug in so he can bypass the counter. He lugs around a 44 ounce convenience store goliath he painted black and decorated with liquid paper. COFFEe it says the final e is lower case so he could fit all the letters. It hangs around his neck on a playground swingset chain.
"Dave, I'm gonna have to charge for that one."
"Wha? I got my own mug. We only pay for the mugs here."
"No. Sorry. You pay for the coffee. Fill that up and the thermos goes dry. Can't have that."
"Aww come on man, you can't penalize a man for ingenuity. Here's the deal. I can make you twenty or thirty of these mugs. You just make a rack to hold them. I get coffee as long as I supply you mugs. Sound good?"
"Dave, that's not gonna work. Guess how many cups it would take to cover your tab as it is"
"Four?"
"No."
"three?"
"Dave."
"you got me... two? no? come on man.... two and a half? Wait... Wait... one?"
I don't think he's ever filled his COFFEe cup completely.
There's a collection of university professors that comes in once or twice a week. They sit in the corner away from the thermoses. Most of these guys pay. Physics, mathematics, engineering and geology. They are ok. Except for one guy. The geology professor, a regular. He gets rowdy, and makes a point of laughing loud when he reads the newspaper.
"HAHA! That's funny. Amazing." He looks around for someone who might be interested in the humor he found. The regulars never respond. They all know he is a black hole for conversation, once you get too close you never escape. The event horizon expands depending on how desperate he is for conversation. If the cafe is empty he will pick up shop and move outside to the sidewalk tables. Wise customers come in when he goes out. Foriegners --eager to be kind and nonthreatening-- fall into his gravitational well faster than anyone. They don't know how to escape.
"There wouldn't be any flood problems if there werent so many nonpermeable surfaces. See, the water used to be able to settle and seep into the ground. Not anymore. Think about how many square miles of land are covered in the cement. Water just runs off and into storm drains and cement lined culverts and ditches. And you can't forget about how people build little mounds for their new houses. Rainwater streams off their roof then onto the sides of their little hills. Where does the water go? It falls in between the houses, then it runs to the street then it goes where? Where? Right. Right into the drains on the street. Then you have to consider thousands of suburban homes all doing the same thing..."
The collective body funk and petruli oil of a day's worth of customers can nearly overpower a full sack of freshly roasted coffee. I had to burn eight pounds of coffee once to drive the smell out. Proximity to a campus helps increase the number of customers, but it also magnifies the body odor. A room full of student visa holders just in from India can't compete with one middle class dreadlocked communist second year sculpture student as far as odor goes.
Since it is my coffee shop I have a few things I require of my customers.
NO DOGS INSIDE.
I don't care how laid back your dog is, I don't care if your dog has a face cuter than a bushel full of piglets and kittens, I don't care if you have a middle name for him. Can't come in. At first I was cool with it. But this one particular Rastafari wannabe kept bringing in his grey mangey dog. Dog wasn't really grey. It was white. Fleas. The dog had so many fleas if it sat on newspaper you could hear the bastards jumping off. Sounded like sleet hitting a windshield.
NO JAMBOXES INSIDE OR OUTSIDE
This helps keep the vagrant ratio low and the number of Led Zeplin and 38 Special songs down.
NO SMOKING AT THE FAR LEFTSIDE CORNER TABLE
Come on folks. There are still a few non smokers left. Leave them be.
IF YOU LIGHT UP SOME GOOD STUFF THE HOUSE GETS A PERCENTAGE
My regulars wish they had their own coffee shop after this rule started.
DONT PUT COFFEE IN THE GOLDFISH BOWL
It was funny the first time the middle school kid with tourettes did it. After losing five goldfish, no more. No teabags and lemon in there either.
JUST BECAUSE SOMETHING CAN BURN DOESNT MEAN YOU SHOULD BURN IT
Napkins, stirring rods, ashtreys, paper cups, 20 ounce coke bottles, milkjugs, fingernails, Star Wars action figures, 8 tracks, sugar, dead skin, seat cushions, homework, photographs of exgirlfriends, CDs, your pubic hair, hemp rope, i dont need to say much more...
LEAVE A TIP
anything from a penny to "don't eat lead" Courtesy, courtesy, courtesy.
PAY OFF YOUR TAB ONCE IN A WHILE
A month too much? Two months killing your ability to buy cigarettes? Pay the shit off as quick as you can. I can't buy coffee if you don't pay.
There are others, but these are the ones posted by the register underneath the airplane plant. Oh, and if you are wondering, the big bell jar next to that clearly marked TIPS is for, you guessed it, tips.