Baltimore Coffee

I've vowed to use my summer break to some serious writing. (Haven't made a ton of progress yet, but hey, it's still June.) It's a task that will require lots of coffee.

I've found I'm pretty much the opposite of a creature of habit: if I try to work in the same location every day, I burn out quickly. I'll bounce between home and my office at school (where the maintenance staff looks at me quizzically, because I'm sometimes the only teacher on the grounds), but I tend to focus best at coffee houses, in part because it's harder to take a siesta in the middle of my work.

So my other plan for the summer is to check out a different Baltimore-area coffee spot every day. I feel strongly about the elements that make a good coffee spot. Coffee itself is one of several considerations. Location, atmosphere, food, and service are all factors. For a limited time, my blog (which generally has no theme, other than the disparate topics that appeal to me) will become a quasi-coffee review blog. I'll write quick blurbs about each spot I visit, and rate them in five categories, each worth five points. I should also stipulate that I'm doing this on my own dime, which means that I won't be exhaustively sampling menus. I'll order coffee and maybe a baked good or a sandwich, I'll sit for a half hour or maybe more, I'll soak in the atmosphere, and that will be that.

The writing didn't get off to the greatest start last week, but the coffee-hunting wasn't bad. Here were the stops I made:

ROGGENART
5722-5724 Falls Rd
Baltimore, MD 21209

Location - It's a convenient spot for me, because it's close to work, but man, the location does this place no favors. Falls Road can get super busy, and there's only parallel parking available, which can be kind of a pain. Also, it's a pretty easy spot to miss. (Accidentally drove by it yesterday.) 3/5

Atmosphere - Gives off a pleasant European vibe, although I'm sure part of that is the presence of a European family (Dutch, maybe?) on the day I visited. The owner is a Serbian who grew up in Austria, I'm told, so I'm sure that's part of it, too. Main floor is pleasant enough, with big windows overlooking Falls. Upstairs (which I almost missed because it's well hidden) was marginally more crowded, with some hipsters writing in spiral notebooks, and reading Kant or something. 5/5

Coffee - A smooth, pleasant cup. 5/5

Food - Roggenart is a bakery with an impressive range of flavored croissants. I just had a plain. Other snacks looked good too, although they looked kind of small in relation to their price. 4/5

Service - Perfectly adequate. Ordering is easy and quick. 5/5

22/25

DOVECOTE CAFE
2501 Madison Ave.
Baltimore, MD 21217

Location - On a lovely residential block near Druid Hill Park. Didn't hurt that I went there on a perfect, 74-degree day. It's the only business on the block. Parking is easy, though I feel that most customers are locals who walked there. 5/5

Atmosphere - Feels like all the folks in the neighborhood gather at this one neighbor's house every morning. Decor inside is funky and mismatched. There are a bunch of Adirondack chairs and tables outside. Funk music soundtrack. (Maybe a touch too loud, or I'm just old.) Interesting, diverse crowd. Maybe 60-40 black-white? 5/5

Coffee - Yum. 5/5

Food - I didn't try anything, but there are a bunch of baked goods underneath glass covers in front. (On my visit, an employee knocked over a platter with a bunch of muffins. So that was messy.) I also noticed they have a pretty large menu, including a "crabby patty." Based on not much, the food gets a 4/5.

Service - Quick and efficient. The staff gets extra points for just looking cool. I think some of them are artists, or at least artsy types. Lots of local art on the walls, much of it African of Black-themed. 5/5

24/25

CUPs
1301 North Broadway
Baltimore, MD 21213

It's really hard to rate this place without some context. Aside from serving coffee, its mission is "creating opportunities for local youth and to building community," which is obviously commendable and almost makes me feel bad about offering criticism. But...

Location - Ok, this isn't an great area, which I know is sort of the point. Still... it's one storefront on a block that is otherwise a ghost town. I love that they're trying, but I'm not sure they can single-handedly make this a desirable location. On the plus side, parking is easy. 2/5

Atmosphere - As far as interior design is concerned, these guys have done a really impressive job. The place is pleasant and homey, and I love the Baltimore mural/sculpture thing on the wall. But both times I've been there, it's been empty. Empty of patrons, and very overstaffed. (I counted seven employees ready to bring me a cup of coffee and a wrap.) Again, God love the staff for putting this place together (the woman who founded the place seems particularly amazing). But the atmosphere reminded me of sitting in a mostly-empty school cafeteria (albeit a nicely decorated one). A bunch of kids were joking around with each other and I just sort of felt out of place. 3/5

Coffee - They serve Zeke's. 5/5

Food - I had a decent curry chicken wrap. Generic, but no complaints. 4/5

Service - Again, hard to judge. The girl behind the counter was charming and clueless. ("Don't forget to ask him XYZ..." her manager had to prompt her at least three times during our 60-second interaction.) The kids are learning. It seems mean to dock them points. But... 3/5

17/25

BALTIMORE COFFEE & TEA
9 West Aylesbury Rd.
Lutherville-Timonium, MD 21093

Location - This place has a bunch of locations, but Timonium is the flagship as well as the location of their coffee roasting plant. BC&T has a lot going for it, but the location does it no favors. It's in a weird, industrial part of Timonium, between York Rd. and light rail tracks. I drove around looking for it for a while, because I assumed I was in the wrong place. The actual store is ugly from the outside; it looks like a warehouse. It's part store-part factory, so I guess the look makes sense. Still, if you happened to walk by (which you almost certainly wouldn't anyway, because who would stroll around here?) it would never occur to you that there's a pleasant cafe inside. 2/5

Atmosphere - There is a pleasant cafe inside, though. On a random Monday afternoon, it was full of happy coffee-drinkers, most of them on the older side. The space doesn't have anything particularly interesting or idiosyncratic to offer, but it's clean and well put together, and as you might expect, it smells fantastic. 4/5

Coffee - Ultimately, the variety of coffee (and tea, if you like that sort of thing) is what sets this place apart from almost any other. There are a million varieties, include weird ones like "s'mores," and "cinnamon sticky bun." I bought a pound of beans, and I'm sure I'll do it again. This is cheating, but: 6/5

Food - I didn't try it, but for a place where food clearly isn't the focus, it has a pretty full menu. Based on nothing in particular: 3/5

Service - A small army of young baristas in BC&T shirts was very capable and attentive. 5/5

20/25 (I doubt I'll be stopping by with papers to grade, but chances are I'll be back when my pound of coffee runs out.)

** Note: This week, I also had a cup of coffee at Grand Grounds, inside Johns Hopkins Hospital. It should by no means be considered a proper coffee house. The place is half Hopkins souvenir shop, and you'd never go there unless you had reason to visit the hospital. Just wanted to let the record show that I went there. And incidentally, the coffee is pretty good. **

Way to Graduate!

Being a teacher is sometimes a little bit like being in the movie Groundhog Day, if it were a year instead of a day. The job requires you to attend the same events annually, and the effect is that these events run into each other and become indistinguishable over time.  Two weeks ago, I attended my thirteenth high school graduation in as many years. Add those to my own graduations, and my sister’s graduations years ago, and I hope you’ll forgive me for tuning out when another valedictorian starts talking about “the best years of our lives” and “the lessons we’ve learned here.”

I’ve become pretty jaded so perhaps this should be taken with a grain of salt, but it has to be said nonetheless: Graduating from high school is an incredibly overrated achievement, and the pageantry surrounding it is completely out of step with what has actually been accomplished.

Look, I know there are places in this country where graduating high school is not to be taken for granted. In Baltimore City, where I live, the graduation rate is %72, a figure that doesn’t take into consideration students who drop out before ninth grade. If a kid from such a school works hard and wants to pull out all the stops after they cross the stage, they should feel entitled to. But at most public and private high schools located in more privileged areas, graduation is essentially a foregone conclusion. My own high school, and the two where I’ve taught, fall into this category, so I’ve seen their graduation rituals firsthand – many times. For almost every student here, dropping out of high school was not even a remote consideration. It was obvious from the first day of their freshman year that they would graduate, and that they would do so in the standard four years.

The irony is that the schools where graduation from high school is taken for granted are the ones that raise the biggest hoopla for their graduates. There’s prom, school-sanctioned activities for after-prom, the graduation ceremony itself, and other assorted senior year activities. (Senior Picnic at one of the schools where I taught, a four-Day Senior Retreat at another. Plus Senior Breakfast, Senior Skip Day, Beach Week, and a smattering of other events throughout the school year.) Under-performing schools don’t offer the same lavish slate of activities. At the graduation ceremony, their families may sometimes bring impressive lung power (see below), but this pales in comparison to spending power.

Much respect to this guy. (Play it til the end.) Although, I wonder if his kid was embarrassed...

Prom is surely the capstone of these annual end-of-year events. Those who don’t work at schools, or who don’t have high school age kids themselves might not be aware of all that it now entails. Senior prom, in privileged communities, is not your parents’ school dance with some streamers in a gym. Competition between neighboring schools has ratcheted up the “prom arms race” in recent years. It now includes the often elaborate “Prom-posal,” the search for an obscenely expensive dress, the requisite limousine, and then the dance itself, which more and more frequently, takes place at a fancy hotel or social club. (Here in Baltimore, a popular venue is the Center Club, an elegant ballroom located on the top floor of the city’s tallest skyscraper, with views overlooking the Inner Harbor and beyond.)

All this to celebrate the kid who may have just eked out a 2.0 GPA, at a school with a 99% graduation rate.

I don’t mean to be a curmudgeon, nor do I mean for this to come off as one of those tiresome screeds against spoiled “kids these days” and their entitled parents. Costs may be climbing as communities compete to outdo each other, but the truth is that the festivities surrounding my own high school graduation, almost twenty years ago, were plenty excessive in their own right. My parents wisely talked me out of renting a limousine to travel the five and a half miles from our house to the prom venue. But that venue in question was the Short Hills Hilton, easily one of the area’s most expensive event spaces. Our after-graduation celebration included an all-night cruise up and down the Hudson River, aboard a ship outfitted with an all-you-can-eat buffet (pointless, by the way, since I had just been out to eat with my family), a DJ, a dance floor, a caricaturist, a karaoke both, etc.

The following morning, after I had caught a couple hours of sleep, my mom woke me up to take me to the camp in Pennsylvania where I would be working for the summer. I was understandably exhausted once I got there, and probably not in the best state to try to make friends with the other counselors, none of whom I knew, and many of whom came from abroad to work in the US for a summer.

I remember telling a British guy the reason why I was so tired.

He blinked. “You Americans are crazy,” he said.

“Why? What did you do after you graduated?”

Pause. “Went down to the pub for a pint.”

I get that high school is challenging, and that for most, its challenges extend beyond literally just graduating. The vast majority of my classmates and the students I’ve taught have tried not merely to earn a diploma but to take the most challenging classes, to shine in these classes, and to excel in sports and extra-curriculars, all in the hopes of getting into a good college, or putting themselves in the best position to succeed at whatever they do next. Plus, the transition from high school to college marks the most important shift in many of our lives, one that brings us from our parents’ house to a freshman dormitory. It is, for so many, the most important and most visible coming-of-age moment. At such a moment, it’s natural for students and their families to want to mark the passage of time. And by all means, they should – with more than a mere celebratory pint, if they like.

All I’m saying is maybe we can dial it down a notch. There’s got to be a happy medium between the local pub and the Center Club.