Espresso 77 - Part I

To drink or not to drink – that is the question. 

First I should put this in context. There’s a new coffee shop in town so this would not be a problem if the shop hadn’t opened last month. Oh, there’s a Dunkin’ Donuts and plenty of Colombian coffee shops here in cafe con leche country that I could patronize on my way to Roosevelt Station and 74th Street. But these shops are part of the natural lay of the land so therefore are not out of the ordinary.  

Espresso 77 opened up right after Thanksgiving and it’s the first of its kind in the neighborhood. It’s a high-end, latte/macchiato/chocolate peppermint/pumpkin spice caramel/cappuccino making shop utilizing Gimmie coffee imported all the way from Brooklyn. They also sell tea (Stash and Tazo) and decaf coffee–neither to otherwise be found in Jackson Heights.

It was opened by two local entreprenuers who will be competing with a Starbucks that will open up around the corner from them February 1st with three times the space.  

It’s not that I’ve never had the urge to buy a café con leche before and take it on the subway with me — my neighborhood makes the best in the city, especially Café la Nueva’s. It’s that I’ve never done it before because I’d then be stoked with high-test before I’d hit my office on 23rd Street and I’m a little afraid of what that might be like. Usually I save my hit of coffee until late in the day and work on tea in the AM. This has been my gameplan for years and it has worked well in keeping my coffee habit to a minimum. 

There’s also the saner question of, do I really want to be holding a hot cup of coffee (café con leche is made with hot milk and they don’t give out heat shields like Starbucks and the other high end coffee shops do) while riding the crowded F train? 

So Espresso 77 opens up and my neighborhood moves just a little further on the road to gentrification. I am both excited and disturbed at the same time. I like my neighborhood as it is but I also like what those gentry types bring to the table — new products and new places to hang out.

Jackson Heights is changing and for me the magnifying glass starts here. I want to support the new shop so I go there with my son — a lot. Max, 5 years old, has made up a song* about the shop (he drinks hot chocolate there and eats biscotti) — which we sing on the way there — and the owners have kindly put up a flyer for my local yoga class.  

On my way to work their first week open, I stopped by. It’s on the way. Yes, I could walk down any number of streets to get to the station but 77th is just about as good a choice as any other – so I walk by.  I stop in. I buy a green tea for the road.

Then I get to the subway and realize, as I enter the masses of jostling commuters winding their way down into the underground, taking no prisoners as they make haste to catch their express trains, just what an idiot I am.

[to be continued]

–Joe Lunievicz

*Espresso 77

(Lyrics by Max)

Espresso seventy-seven

Espresso seventy-seven

Espresso seventy-seven

Espresso seventy-seven

Espresso seventy-seeeeeeeven

Espresso seventy-seven.