Member-only story
A coffee story of no consequence
I Have a Coffee Guy
He also sells tax stamps, collects and handles parcels for 823 courier companies, and as a side hustle, sells amazing tea like a drug dealer selling blow
He did not want to be in the photo — something to do with a dead horse in the mayor’s bed — but Antonio is super friendly until you say Ciao without buying anything.
Then he swears at you, smiling of course — he understands ‘customer service’ — which he learned from “Alfonso’s School for Mafiosi Going Straight and Needing to Learn Customer Service Pronto-Like”.
He has Pavarotti playing in the background … always, so the swearing somehow works along with various hand gestures, sent with love, directly to you, as you exit his den of iniquity. I’m not fluent in Italian, but I know hand gestures. They’re pretty universal. My arsenal of swear words is developing nicely.
The hand gestures I already owned.
His tea sales are done like drug deals — he does not want his coffee aficionados to think he is not zen focused on their coffee needs. Or that he even sells tea. Tea is for foreigners and milk with tea is for heathen foreigners.
