WRD 111 Scene Depiction

WRD 111- Scene Depiction Overview

Haley Kassinger

Coffea Community

A Little Background

                My group and I observed and depicted a local coffee shop, Coffea. We chose this community because it was relatively unfamiliar to us and was conveniently located. The coffee shop is located off Rose Street right on campus. It is definitely a convenience for caffeine-craving college students. Coffea is essentially a coffee shop, though it also provides other services. A few of the things Coffea provides is take-out, catering, outdoor seating, and occasionally music sessions. They make sandwiches and sell pastries as well. The store managers are Erin Lynch and Jay Stevenson. The shop hours are: 7:00am-12:00am Monday-Friday and 9:00am-12:00am Saturday-Sunday. The business started in 2006 and quickly became a local hot spot for a variety of people.

Inside The Shop

I go to a well-known coffee chain, Starbucks, practically every day. So, before even going into Coffea I made the assumption that the two environments would be nearly the same. Once I walked into the urban coffee shop, I quickly threw that assumption right out the window. But before we could even go in, we had to deal with the struggle of finding a parking space. The parking was very limited, which wasn’t really too big of a deal, it was just a little inconvenient. I was surprised it was so busy. As soon as my group member and I walked in we were taken back to see it was so crowded. There were booths all along the walls, along with high tables, and a few couches. It appeared to be a very laid back environment. Before we sat down we wanted to order something off the menu. My group member ordered first and instinctively ordered her drink using Starbucks terms. She asked for a Grande hot chocolate. The worker looked at her in confusion and said, “Can you translate Grande for me. I don’t know what that is.” Naturally, I found this to be hysterical. There was no comparing this place to Starbucks. We needed to go into this with an open mind.

After we ordered our drinks, we moved over to a different part of the counter receive them. While waiting, I got the chance to really look at all the stuff they had on and behind the counter. There were plenty of things to look at, so my eyes were jumping from one thing to another. The first thing I noticed was their menu. The menu they had was written, what looks like, different colors of chalk on a big blackboard on the wall. It gave it an “artsy” feel. The next thing I noticed was the wide variety of coffee flavorings they had on display. Also not like Starbucks. Next to the register they had a big display holding all of the pastries. All of the goodies looked delicious. So, those definitely made me want to splurge and order one of everything. There were also many vegan and organic options available, something that I found to be pretty thoughtful. I was kind of surprised to see that none of the workers had a dress code, or at least followed a dress code. They were wearing everyday-casual clothes. I found this to be kind of neat, for lack of a better word. I watched the employee make my drink and it was definitely more hand on than Starbucks. Starbucks and other big coffee businesses have a lot of automatic machines to grind the coffee beans or mix the drinks, but Coffea did everything by hand. When I received my drink after a short amount of time, they had left the lid off for me to see the design they made with the cool whip. That wasn’t something my usual coffee vendor did, so I enjoyed the subtle art.

^{Menu at Coffea                                         Photo by: Haley Kassinger}

^{Coffee beans at Coffea                          Photo by: Haley Kassinger}

Decoration & Surroundings

We were excited to try our coffee and take a look at the rest of the shop, but we had trouble finding a place to sit after we received our drinks. We walked around for what seemed like forever (more like 30-45 seconds), trying to find a spot we could wiggle in. Eventually, we managed to find a couch in a corner next to two other people. The two people next to us seemed pretty nice, so we were pleased with that. After all they had to look at just at the counter, I figured there wouldn’t be much else to see. But the longer I sat there, the more interesting things I noticed. Something that really caught my eye was a fish tank built into the wall in front of the bar area. It had all kinds of colorful fish. I couldn’t help but to be mesmerized by it. Other decorations all throughout the coffee shop were plants. You could tell there was a nature theme they were going for. Directly beside us, by the couch, was a big bamboo tree. It was really pretty, but also kind of in the way. In order to leave the couch area we were forced to run into or move some of the limbs out of our way. That definitely wasn’t a big deal, but something to keep in mind when choosing your seat. Going along with the nature/bamboo theme I noticed the unique ceiling design the shop had. The ceiling had a crisscrossed bamboo pattern. Hanging from the ceiling was a lot of dimly lit lights. Seeing that the lights were so dim made me realize just how dim the entire coffee shop was. The dimness provided a calm and laid back feel.

^{Coffea Ceiling       Photo by: Haley Kassinger}

                Like Starbucks, and many other places of business, Coffea had music playing in the background. When listening closer to the type of music I noticed that it wasn’t the typical “popular” music most businesses play. They had their own alternative music that complimented the relaxed environment. When we talked to one of the employees, Sarah, who stated that the workers get to choose what type of music they listen to instead of it having it chose for them. “Everyone kind of finds their own nitch, and that’s what this is. If we like something, then we run with it. And we like having the freedom to choose what music we listen to and how we dress and how we run things.”

The People

                Even with all the decoration and unique surroundings, there’s still one more important part of the Coffea community that I have yet to discuss; the people. I couldn’t help but to try and look at and study every single person in Coffea, simply because they all had their own taste and style. There was a guy with purple hair, girls wearing combat boots and oversized sweaters, people in sweat pants, and everything else under the sun. Since Coffea is on campus, most of the customers are college students, with the exception of a few teachers every now and then. Even though everyone I saw was certainly unique in their own way, they all had something in common. Nearly every person in the shop had the same mannerisms. Most of the customers were on laptops with open books nearby. If they didn’t have a laptop open they had headphones in listening to their own music or chatting with a friend beside them while sipping on their drinks. There was also a couple people I saw who attempted to do all three at the same time. We asked Sarah about the environment Coffea provided compared to Starbucks and she said, “We want people to stay and just chill out.  I don’t think Starbucks is really like that.” She is definitely right about that. I’ve seen people stay to drink their coffee at Starbucks, but have never known anybody to stay for hours on end. We actually sat near a girl who appeared to be studying and we left and came back a couple hours later to find that she was still there with her book open in front of her.

Its Own Community

                “I like working on a local level because it’s more of a community. Starbucks and other big businesses may have regular customers, but we know our customers by name. We know exactly what they want and with what additives. We know their families. We have close nit customers and all together a close nit community.” It was easy to see just by one trip to Coffea just how close all the workers and customers are. There was no question about whether or not this little coffee shop could be classified as a community. “We may all do something a little different, but we will all end up with a similar product in the end. It’s just trial and error. We make decisions as a group. That’s the only way to do it.”

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