It’s 7 a.m. and the cafe just opened. A fresh urn of coffee is on standby, ready for a “large hot drip, black, to the top” before they go to work. At 7:34 a.m., the door opens and a pair of scrubs comes in. Not the dark-blue ones, but the teal ones that pair with a “large Americano”. Later comes the dark blue scrubs along with a “small, hot, oat milk latte”. In the afternoon, a “large iced chai with vanilla” comes in on their lunch break. And sometimes our neighbors upstairs pay us a visit with a “large iced mocha latte”.
Becoming A Regular
So, what makes someone a regular? Is it the number of times you frequent an establishment? Is it you ordering the same thing everywhere you go? Or perhaps it’s deemed regular status when the barista recognizes you and starts making your drink before you even walk into the store. I’d say it’s all of the above and then some.
Regulars make our little coffee world go ‘round and it’s the small interactions that build our community. It’s asking how your dog is doing or how your first day of school went that makes your cup of coffee taste that much better. It’s breaking away from your “regular” coffee and trying out experimental drinks together. It’s meeting your family members who are visiting the area. It’s even just saying “See you later!”.
At the end of the day, being a regular means feeling like you’re at your home away from home. In this case, it’s home away from home with a dyed hair barista, like me, serving up a mean cappuccino with a story about how my cat left paw prints on my freshly painted windowsill.
Bynx: A Composite Third Place
I think the beauty of Bynx comes from it being a multi-faceted third place. It’s a space for people ranging from coffee lovers to studying scholars to rising musicians to hard-core collectors to night owls. It feels like we’re a group of ragtag individuals who have nothing in common except for the fact that we find solace and joy in the four (give or take) walls of 420 E. Church Street, Unit 118. And, that’s what our community is about: the gathering of peoples with a variety of backgrounds over a simple cup of joe.
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