Small Coffee from Grind Coffee Shop
Item Purchased: Small Coffee from Grind Coffee ShopLocation Purchased: The Grind / 4613 N. Lincoln Ave. / Chicago, IL
Price: $1.55 + tax
Review: It's amazing that we don't all take a collective first sip of coffee in the morning, pop each eyelid open, maniacally stare at each other and yell "You paid how much for that coffee?!?" It doesn't matter whether you go to a disgusting Starbucks or a fantastic independent coffee shop like The Grind. We are all addicted and pay far too much for our coffee (us coffee drinkers that is). I spend at least $550.00 per year on coffee. That doesn't even include all of the do-it-yourself coffee equipment I have in my home and the bags of beans I buy. If I quit drinking coffee for a few short years, I could pay off my credit card debt with the money I saved...
But I won't... And let's not even mention cigarettes, okay?
The point is, if I am boing to piss away (quite literally... in the end) hundreds of dollars each year, I'd prefer to place those dollars in the coffers of a local neighborhood shop with its own personality and flavor. The Grind has plenty of both. Though small in size, The Grind has a cosy feeling without doubling as a cross-stitch museum. Displaced hipsters sit hunched over laptops, lapping up the free Wi-Fi and reading the liner notes from the new CD they purchased at Laurie's Planet of Sound down the road. The staff is friendly and patient and most of the products they sell are organic. The largest problem with The Grind is their neck-and-neck price comparison with the Starbucks just down the road. I mean, come on! We're pretty dumb for buying our caffeinated drinks at such prices in the first place, but coffee is basically the movie popcorn of today.
The coffee, itself, is a bit on the dark-roast side (at least today it was), but the flavor wasn't horrible after three packets of raw sugar (my latest litmus test for coffee). I don't make it up to Lincoln Square too often, but this is the kind of coffee shop that could make any Chicago neighborhood a better place to wake up.
Rating: 3.75 / 5
posted by Kevin | permalink |
2 Comments:
There is nothing worse than losing your favorite, local coffee place. There used to be one in Oak Park that I went to all the time (I think I read pretty much all of The Corrections sitting outside there). The space is now a high-end childrens' clothing store. At least I know that they didn't close because of lack of business. The owners decided to move to Hawaii, so clearly the customers had been there.
Unless you count moving away from Milwaukee and losing Fuel Cafe, I have moved around so much since first moving to Chicago five years ago that I never really had a coffee shop that I considered part of me. The closest was Gourmand in Printer's row because I used to bike down there before I went to work at the Sears Tower and read for a while. Now that I am living in Bridgeport, it's either Bridgeport Coffee House or Kristoffers, depending on which way I am heading. But after a year, I will probably move again and the caffeinated affair will be over.
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