Chomp!
June 14, 2013
By Ron Aiken
June 14, 2013
The Best Coffeehouse in Columbia/The World
If there’s anything I love more than Drip Coffee in Five Points (and, to a lesser degree, it’s cramped Main Street location), it’s slipping my mind at the moment and please don’t tell he/she/it if you see them because I still love he/she/it very much.
Unlike some of my contemporaries, I never was a Starbucks hater. Starbucks makes and for a long time now has made an outstanding cup of coffee. It’s not a sin to realize people would pay more for quality – it’s how Earth Fare and Whole Foods and a litany of other examples are profitable and provide value and quality people want.
That Having Been Said (I capitalized that as a proper noun, bee-tee-dubs, because I felt like it and that’s just how I do things – the language and I have an understanding, OK?), I love love love Drip because there are certain things I need from a coffee shop – a distinct vibe, a particular aroma, a high quality of customer service (I demand a quirky, cute, hipster staff with my Cafe Americano, thank you very much. Give me hipster baristas or give me death!) and a general atmosphere of slight smugness (we’re all very pleased with ourselves for being so picky, after all, and don’t we deserve to be?) mixed with a sense of humor and genuine kindness that permeates everything and creates a place you think about when you’re not there and cannot wait to get back to.
Drip has all these things and more – great background music (anything from the Grease soundtrack to reggae to doo-wop), a swell bar seating area great people seem drawn to and some of the best conversations in Columbia happen and a super menu for breakfast, lunch and dinner (Turkey, Brie and Raspberry Preserves Sandwich? Are you kidding me? Yes! Homemade Chipotle Pimento Cheese on a buttery brioche? Double yes!). And if you’re into such things, they also serve beer and wine in the evenings with occasional live music and poetry (to learn more about what’s going on, visit http://dripcolumbia.com/).
It’s also a super place to work, read, write, do the crossword or just jam in whatever fashion suits you. If you’re not a regular already, you’re probably not very cool and should stay away as per your custom. If, however, you are, and there are legitimate extenuating circumstances why you have not yet been, then by all means, get ye there, kind sir or madam, post haste. Or just with haste; I don’t think you technically have to post your haste (unless its to Twitter of Facebook, of course).
Is it the best coffeehouse in the world? With my overseas visits limited to Germany and Japan, I can only say ‘absolutely.’ In all seriousness, I think Drip is the best drinking establishment to open in Columbia since The Hunter-Gatherer, and since that opened in or around 1995, I think that’s saying something. Kudos to owner Sean McCrossin and staff – how can you not love Sean, Mike, Henry, Kirstie, Rachael and the rest of the Five Points crew with their badass selves? – for taking the ordinary and making it unique, making it special, making it ours.
As for the downtown location, I may come around on that, though its décor and clientele are a little…metallic for my taste. I understand that the décor fits the space, and does the best it can possibly do within it. As for the clientele…well, they’re downtown people, aren’t they? They can’t help it; it’s who God made them, and after all the world needs people who wear expensive suits and talk about jet skis and doing deals at their place at DeBordieu. And, they need their coffee just like everyone else. It’s just that I don’t need them with mine, at least not in anything other than extreme moderation, and not when I have the sublime, sensational, superlative in every way original at my disposal and convenience.
Above Photo: To its eternal credit, Drip Coffee is a purveyor of this, the No. 1 chocolate/coffee delight in the whole wide world: Ferrero’s Pocket Coffee Espresso treat, which is a chocolate-covered mini shot of espresso that will blow your mind and hook you for life, guaranteed. It’s 98 cents ($1.08 with tax), and worth every rotten penny of it.
Let’s Rank a Bunch of Restaurants!
In the spirit of the well-intentioned pimento cheese tastings Chomp! conducted a couple of weeks ago, I received in the electronic mailbox a ranking of lunch establishments frequented by some of Columbia’s most successful people/large eaters. It’s not a secret list, so by conveying its contents I’m not leaking sensitive material. This is not WikiChomp. But I will protect the identity of the list’s originator (unless he/she says in a future correspondence that I may so do), for fear of reprisals. Because if I know anything from having written a weekly food column in Columbia for going on six years now, it’s that food people, well, they love them some reprisals.
The list’s focus is on local places over chains, which, c’mon, you HAVE to love. And it focuses also on those with healthy appetites…Chomp! Could not otherwise condone the list were it created for those who eat like weight-conscious sparrows who turn their beaks away from things like buttery mashed potatoes and fried chicken and sweet potato pound cake (and yes, Virginia is such a thing, at the spectacular cafe Cafe 1201 located, appropriately enough, the Capitol Center at 1201 Main St, formerly the AT&T building).
So, in all its glory, I present to you the fruits of the labor of a thousand lunches, affectionately referred to as the Big Man’s Lunch Guide. It very well may be the best thing of its kind ever done in Columbia.
Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think by emailing me at [email protected]!
Follow Chomp! on Twitter @RonAiken and on Facebook. Email Chomp! at [email protected]. He even answers his phone sometimes: 803-200-8809. Cheers!
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