Bad, Ass Coffee

I had my first visit to Bad Ass Coffee and it wasn’t on purpose, well not really. I had a falling out with a friend who was my mechanic and now he’s neither my friend nor my mechanic and my friend, a different friend (give me some credit - I have more than one) recommended a new mechanic and said “tell him I sent you” as if the mechanic would say “You guys are friends? In that case, we’ll fix your car for real.”

Coincidentally, the appointment with the new mechanic was on the morning of the biggest snowstorm of the year which normally wouldn’t be a problem since I have a Jeep Wrangler with the big motor and even bigger tires; I can take 12” without a problem, of snow that is. The Jeep had been limping since the end of October and when I had trouble getting it into gear, I tucked it away in the garage. My old mechanic turned into a bonehead when the repair he botched needed to be fixed properly and made every excuse to not make good on his bad. We had words and I crossed him off of my Christmas card list which presented me with a challenge as I had already purchased Christmas cards; and I also had no one to fix the Jeep. It took a little over two months to find a new mechanic I could trust. 

The date was set but getting it there presented its own set of challenges. Since the clutch wasn’t working, I had to put the Jeep in gear, start it, and then not change gears. So I drove the 8 miles to the mechanic in first gear with a top speed of about 14 miles an hour which made me oh so popular in my town among a sea of Saturday morning SUVs and, since I couldn’t stop, I had to pass under a few red lights which, if I had gotten pulled over, I could have said were orange.

So the mechanic had a very small sitting area and I wasn’t going to sit there for a few hours with nothing to stare as except, well, male mechanics asses (since I would be sitting, their buttocal region would be at eye level), and that body part is not on my list of the ones I’d most like to stare at. There were a few places within walking distance: McDonald's for one but, quite honesty, I didn’t want to be seen on my laptop in a McDonald's. 

I probably didn’t mention that I got a new laptop; it’s an 11” MacBook Air which is a step up, or a size down, from my previous 13” MacBook Pro, which, towards the end, felt like I was carrying around a car battery with the car attached. And I don’t know if I can call the MacBook Air, in good conscience, a laptop since it only covers half of my lap; maybe kneetop would be more appropriate.

There was an Advance Auto Parts nearby which had wifi (really???) but, as far as I know, they didn’t have a place for me to setup my computer, and they serve really bad coffee. Home Depot and Planet Fitness (my gym) were across the street but dust isn’t good for the laptop and neither is sweat. If I would have thought about the gym, I might have worn clothes I could exercise in but, while leaving the house, my main focus was to make it to the mechanic with one operational transmission gear and one remaining brain cell #longweek. So my options were Bad, Ass Coffee and the lobby of an M&T bank. My mechanic, the one with the ass, recommended Bad Ass. 

If Starbucks has taught me anything, it’s that coffee shops should resemble 1950s jazz clubs, but Bad Ass didn’t. This particular shop was Hawaii themed which confused me as Juan Valdez and his donkey taught us that coffee and high grade cocaine come from Columbia.

Just a word about Juan Valdez; when I was a kid, there was a commercial with a middle class American woman opening her cupboard to get her morning coffee and finding Juan and his donkey standing there. Instead of freaking out and screaming, like I would have done, or smashing him in the face with a crock pot, like my girlfriend would have done, the woman gladly accepts the coffee from a smiling and, albeit, creepy Juan and his donkey; if you’ve ever scraped donkey poop off of ceramic tile, you know how this whole scene would have thrown off your Saturday morning. 

I researched Bad, Ass Coffee and their coffee comes from the mountains of Kona, Hawaii where for generations, donkeys, referred to as “The Bad Ass Ones,” would haul coffee down the mountain. That’s the legend part and, as we both know, most legends are bullshit…except for Keyser Sose. “Bad Ass” was probably heard when the donkey wandered off of the well worn trail or when I’m sitting and I'm eye level with my mechanics ass. Kona can only produce so many coffee beans so the bulk of Bad, Ass Coffee’s coffee comes from South America and Mexico; it looks like I owe Juan an apology and Bad, Ass owes it’s customers, both of them, an explanation.

When I saw the name Bad Ass Coffee, naturally my brain added a comma to make it Bad, Ass Coffee which reminded me of the scene from the Bucket List when Jack Nicholson shared that he drank the ulta-exclusive Kopi Luwak coffee and Morgan Freeman let him know that he’s been drinking coffee made from beans that come from a weasel's ass. 

I mistakenly said that Kopi Luwak is coffee that comes from a monkey’s butt and my niece, my nephew, and me spent one night calling it Monkey Butt Coffee which, apparently, makes me the best uncle ever, and somehow the worst brother. When we googled Monkey Butt Coffee, we realized it’s actually a thing and we hadn't really coined anything. Who knew?

Anywho, Bad, Ass Coffee, with the Hawaiian decor and Kona printed everywhere made me, for some reason, think that Don Ho like chap would be serving me. Two young, and not unattractive girls womaned the counter; one had tattoo sleeves and a door-knocker nose ring; the other had the horseshoe nose ring (how the heck does she blow her nose with that thing?) and the sides of her head shaved with the remaining hair dyed reddish-orange; I assumed this was not her natural color as I’ve only seen this hair color four times in my life: A) on Lucille Ball who claimed she dyed her hair so many times that she forgot what the original color was, 2) on Ronald McDonald of fast food fame and, D) on former comedian Kathie Griffin who takes orders at McDonald's; I’m guessing her hair helped on the interview; and since I've never seen Carrot Top and Kathie in the same place at the same time, I'm guessing they're the same person. 

Normally tattoos, piercings, and bizarre hairdos (would head options have sounded better?) might prevent most from getting a job, except for when they're applying for work at Starbucks or at the Apple Store; they seem to have a disproportionate number of tattooed and other haired citizens where apparently everyday is casual Friday night in Greenwich Village.  

I’ve passed Bad, Ass Coffee on more than a few occasions and I half expected it to be similar to Starbucks, but it seemed more of a franchised mom-and-pop. They had many items for sale including coffee tumblers, keychains, and refrigerator magnets. There were Power Bars and gum (unchewed of course) on the counter and t-shirts and bumper stickers behind it. It felt like they were trying a bit too hard to be everything to everyone instead of just picking a theme and sticking to it. The counter setup, the window shades, and the bathrooms were very Starbucks. Behind the counter and the ‘pour coffee in the garbage hole to make room for milk and sugar’ areas were like a corner deli with a pinch of 7-Eleven.  

The associates said “aloha," which in Hawaiian means both hello and goodbye (couldn’t they just invent another word?) when you approached but wore t-shirts instead of Hawaiian shirts which people from Hawaii just call shirts; I wonder if Hawaiians call t-shirts American shirts.

The floors were a very generic, and probably Mexican but most certainly not Hawaiian, tile. The store looked that oddly attractive blonde who has had so much plastic surgery that the various features which, separately, are very nice, don’t seem to fit properly on just the one person, and she ends up just looking odd. 

There were some nice touches however: the associates were bubbly and quite animated; I don’t drink coffee and I avoid dairy, when possible; I typically get venti chai tea with coconut milk at Bucks (venti coconut chai); the girl at the counter offered me almond milk instead. It’s hard enough to find it at the health food store but she had it on tap, if you know what I mean. And I didn’t have to know Italian to order; I simply said “20 ounces or 6 liquid inches.”

With 65 locations worldwide, they’re hardly a threat to Starbucks; Starbucks has at least 65 locations in my town. On this particular snowy morning, Bad, Ass barely had one or two customers an hour where Starbucks would have had a line out the door. A few minutes after I arrived, a man approached the counter and ordered a large medium roast, at which we all chuckled. It evolved into a very witty Abbott & Costello type conversation: “How can you want a large and a medium in the same cup?” For round two, I ordered a 12oz tea in a 24oz cup and I told the girl behind the counter to just fill it up the rest of the way, which she did and then she charged me for a 24oz.

Most of the customers seemed quite chummy with the staff which gave it a small town coffee shop feel. A 40 something man arrived in the early afternoon. I’m quite sure he was John, the owner, and he seemed concerned with every detail of how his coffee shop was run: he straightened the magazines on the coffee table. He front faced and pulled forward the coffee bags on the shelves; he engaged me and some other customers in small talk even though I would had preferred to remain in the background.

The shops patrons did finally file in after 12pm which might have to do with the weather and the fact that it was a Saturday more than anything else. It wasn’t Starbucks traffic but Bad, Ass also didn’t have some of the issues of Starbucks. The store seemed exceptionally clean which I’ve never really seen in a Starbucks. I am uniquely equipped to comment on Starbucks cleanliness (so Starbucks, you can save your lawyers the trouble or writing another letter - the first letter is proudly framed on the wall in my office) as I frequent three Starbucks in my area and I arrive just as they open five days a week; the opening condition of the store resembles that of a movie theatre at the end of opening night. 

I have a rough commute to work every morning and I get on the road early and spend an hour or two at Starbucks. The girls at my particular Starbucks are friendly enough but not so ‘in my face’ that I feel I have to make conversation. The lighting is dim no matter what time I arrive and I’d probably feel more at home with a saxophone and an oversized suit jacket.

So Bad, Ass Coffee is pretty Bad, Ass. Although I do not drink coffee, I feel uniquely qualified to comment on coffee shops as I drop in at least seven times a week and I’m not biased by drinking actual coffee as we know that’s not what coffee shops are about. 

Bad, Ass is not taking over the world anytime soon and I think they arrived at the party after everyone was was half drunk and had already settled into their clicks. This Bad, Ass location, however, is not going away anytime soon as it’s already been around for five years. If you're ever in upstate New York and you want some really Bad, Ass Coffee, make sure to stop in and give them a try. And if you decide to drink your coffee sitting down, try not to stare at my mechanics ass.