Coffee and Abuse

If you ever find yourself in the charmingly obscure hamlet of Myers Flat, just off Highway 101, in Northern California's Humboldt County, I double-dog dare you to patronize The Daily Grind Coffee House -- a cluttered little rodent hole next door to the Four Mori Market & Deli. They boast a "world famous mocha" (Ooo! color me impressed) but neglect to mention that said mocha, as well as all their other drinks, comes with a side order of surliness, a generous dollop of condescension, and sprinkling of disdain.

I have dropped into the Daily Grind three times in as many years and each visit has been singularly unpleasant, yet oddly entertaining in a how-long-you-can-hold-your-finger-in-the-candle-flame kind of way. If your personality is at all inclined toward mischievous depravity, the experience is well worth the detour, I assure you.

My first acquaintance with The Grind was back in the summer of 2005, when I was playing tour guide to my  friend, Hamish -- a large, boisterous, coffee-addicted Scotsman. It was a typical overly-warm July afternoon in the California redwoods and, having just circuited the Founders Grove, we were duly parched and yearning for refreshment. As we drove south, Ham -- who can locate coffee houses faster than an airport beagle can sniff out carry-on salami -- suddenly commanded that I pull off at Myers Flat so we could, in his words, "have a tea." (Brits and their ilk refer to any afternoon repast as "tea." I don't understand it, but I'm prepared to accept it as one of their emblematic quirks, similar to the way we Californians refer to all people as "guys," regardless of their gender.)

Anyway, true to form, Ham ferreted out this funky little establishment that looked promising, despite what I would consider an inordinately thick window display of dream-catchers. A hand-lettered sandwich board propped outside the door proclaimed their aforementioned "world famous mocha" assertion. Beneath that, almost as a afterthought, it read, "and fresh fruit smoothies."  We parked the car and walked in.

Finding ourselves facing an eight-by-five-foot chalk board scrawled with a largely indecipherable list of beverages, we stood for several minutes, brows furrowed, muttering sotto voce questions to each other.

"Does that say 'blackberry-mango smoothie' or 'be merry and go smoking'?"

"I can't tell. What do you think they mean by 'espresso terminoso'?"

"No idea. Maybe drinking it gets you an audience with the Great Bean Maker in the Sky?"

All the while, a sullen, dreadlocked Rastafar-ette sat behind the counter, reading a battered copy of Greenhouse Growers magazine and pointedly ignoring us. Ham braved the first contact with her by requesting one of their Ultimate Iced Lattes.

"Waseyes?" she grunted, not even bothering to look up from her Hydroponics Made Easy article.

"Beg pardon?" asked Ham.

"WhhhaaT SiiiiZzze?" she repeated, glowering at him and enunciating as if speaking to a child.

"Large," said Ham, turning to me with a bit of worry in his eyes.

Rastette flung her magazine onto the counter, heaved an effortful sigh, lifted herself from her bar stool and walked out the front door.

"Was it something I said?" asked Ham.

"Maybe she's going to pick the beans." I retorted.

Peeking out the door, I was just in time to see her bony vegan backside turn into Four Mori's next door. For a full six minutes, Ham and I stood in the shop surveying the accumulated bric-a-brac, not really knowing whether to stay or leave. Our constancy was rewarded when the ill-tempered little cur returned, carting a pint of vanilla ice-cream.

"We don't have a freezer in here," she offered, whereupon Ham and I nodded thoughtfully and uttered mollifying "Um-hums."

Returning to her lair behind the counter, she spent 15 minutes effecting some uncharacteristically complex industry with a coffee grinder and a Cuisinart, ultimately producing a 24-ounce blended latte that appeared to have ground coffee beans mixed into its cool, creamy froth. Ham was ecstatic. He eagerly forked over the $5.50 for his bucket o' caffeine and immediately set himself to sucking frosty slush up the straw and into his sinus cavities. After depositing Ham's money in the till, Rastette slouched back onto her bar stool, retrieved her magazine and regressed into an unsociable sulk.

"I'm sorry," I inquired meekly, "but I was interested in getting a large strawberry-banana smoothie?"

With another loud exhale, she once again arose and exited the establishment. I shrugged a "whatever" to Ham, who by then was panting off his initial attack of brain-freeze, and we waited in silence once more. A few moments later Rastette returned with a basket of strawberries and two bananas. Pulling a large wooden cutting board from under a pile of newspaper, she began to Benihana the fruit with a large meat cleaver. I saw my life flash briefly before me when she swiveled, cleaver raised, and glared menacingly at me. "Did you want that made with yogurt?" she sneered.

"Sure, if that's how you do it," I replied cheerfully, hoping to feign my both my enthusiasm for her smoothie recipe and my endorsement of whatever means most facilitated her speedy completion of my drink. Wrong answer. Rastette smacked the cleaver down onto the counter and rolled her eyes with yet another exaggerated respiratory discharge, wandered out the door. Several minutes later she was back grasping a tub of plain yogurt. It took her still another ten minutes to finish my smoothie. I handed over my $5.50 with an obsequious, "Thank you," which was met by freezing silence.  Leaving her studying an electrical diagram for wiring grow-lights, Ham and I departed, pleasantly sated, though 40 minutes older and $11.00 poorer for our trouble.

My next dalliance at The Grind came a year later, while I was sharing time at my family's Redway summer cabin with my sister, Kit, and her brood. We had driven north to visit Eureka's  Sequoia Park Zoo -- a favorite with her boys -- and on our way back to the cabin, Kit suggested we stop by the Shrine Drive Through Tree's curio shop (also in Myers Flat), to pick up some redwood-themed piece of kitsch for a friend back home. As we pulled off the highway, I pointed out The Daily Grind, jokingly referring to it as the "home of the latte troll."

"I wouldn't mind a latte," announced Kits's husband, Frank, who then tossed over his shoulder, "Do you boys want some smoothies?" Despite my warnings, the consensus was for drinks all around. We parked outside the curio shop and Frank waited with the boys while Kit and I steeled ourselves to the task of beverage procurement.

An hour later, after a torture session not unlike Ham's and mine, we returned with three smoothies, an Ultimate Iced Latte, an iced chai and significantly chaffed egos. The boys were asleep and Frank was getting ready to dial 9-1-1 and request that the Sheriff issue a missing person's report.

The most recent of my Grind ordeals transpired just this past August. I was, again, vacationing at the cabin, but this time with my brother Mark and his family. We had gone for a cruise up the Avenue of the Giants and, on returning, Ellie and Evan (Mark's wife and eldest son) expressed a fervent desire for chai.  Having a chai addiction of my own, I was sympathetic and offered The Daily Grind as a close, albeit regrettable, fixative. We used the same strategy as had Kit and I. Leaving Mark and his two-man demolition team in the car, Ellie and I submitted ourselves for the inevitable abuse.

This time, Rastette was not there to attend us. Instead, we were served (and I used that term loosely) by someone closely resembling Michael Keaton's Beetlejuice character. He was talking with one of the locals when we entered and, for at least five minutes, refused to even acknowledge our presence. When he became sufficiently annoyed that we hadn't had the good grace to simply leave, he turned his head in our direction and barked, "What?!"

"Could I get two iced chais, please," Ellie asked, "one large and one small." Shaking his head in disgust, as if she'd asked him to pick up her dog's poop, Beetlejuice assembled Ellie's drinks with wordless belligerence. When she proffered a $20.00 note in payment for her $8.00 tab, he seemed vexed beyond the limits of human endurance. Dumping her return $12.00 onto the counter, he made a bee-line for the front door, but pulled up when he saw me.

"Did you want something?" he growled.

I was within a millisecond of parrying back a snide, "No, I'm just standing here to watch the maggots hatch," when better judgment stopped me. (It's never a good idea to piss off someone who will be preparing your food.) Instead I politely indicated that I, too, would appreciate a large iced chai, if the provision of such did not detain him from something more important -- like scraping the ingredients for his evening meal out from under his toenails. (Okay, I only said the toenail thing inside my head, but it satisfied, nonetheless.)

My request elicited an ocular rotation and protracted exhalation similar to those I had garnered from Rastette in years past. But I was glad, at least, to see that Beetlejuice was keeping up The Grind's fine tradition of customer disservice. In due time, I handed over my $5.50 and stepped gingerly aside as he again sprinted for the exit, lest we or, heaven forbid, some new walk-in request more drinks of him.

So, by my count, The Daily Grind is O-for-three on likability. And what's more, I found two unfavorable online reviews (one at MerchantCircle.com and the other at Yelp.com) conveying sentiments akin to my own. No doubt the proprietors' acerbic ethos stems from the facts that: 1) their true interests lie with the purveyance of plant matter other than coffee beans; 2) this whole "world famous mocha" thing is merely a front to explain an otherwise implausible seven-figure income; and 3) they would probably be wholly delighted if nobody ever patronized their odious little hovel but rather left them alone to attend to the business of stuffing ganja buds into little salable plastic bags.

All this said, I would still invite you to drop into The Daily Grind, if for no other reason than to rekindle your affection for the brainwashed cyborgs who work at your local Starbucks. At least they smile while they're neglecting your order.  And for a real kick in the pants, I'd recommend the Grind's Ultimate Iced Latte -- but not if you're planning to sleep within, say, 48 hours of having drunk it.

Oh, and while you're there, maybe have a go at ordering a non-fat, half-caff, half-decaff, triple grande, quarter sweet, sugar free, vanilla soy, extra hot, extra foamy, caramel macchiato, with nutmeg. Just to see if you can make their heads explode.