A new Williamsburg cafe has instituted a rigorous philosophical interview before serving any beverage
NEW YORK – A new coffee shop in Williamsburg has introduced an unusual prerequisite for service, requiring each customer to participate in a 20-minute philosophical interview justifying their desire for coffee before any beverage will be prepared.
The Process
The cafe, named Intention, asks each patron to articulate “why, truly, they seek caffeine” before a barista will engage with their order. Customers are seated across from a trained “coffee philosopher” who probes their motivations, challenges their assumptions, and, if satisfied, eventually permits them to purchase a $9 pour-over.
“We reject the transactional model of coffee,” explained owner Bram Holloway-Pyne, who wears a single monocle for reasons he declined to explain. “Anyone can sell coffee. We sell a relationship with coffee. Before you drink, you must understand. Why do you want this? What void are you filling? Is it the caffeine, or is it the ritual, or is it loneliness? We will not serve you until we know.”
The Interview
Patrons report the interviews can be grueling. “I just wanted a latte,” said customer Megan Fitzwilliam, emerging shaken after 25 minutes. “They asked me to define alertness. They asked if I had considered that my fatigue was spiritual. By the end I was questioning my entire relationship with consciousness. Then they charged me eleven dollars and the latte was, honestly, fine. A bit cold from the interview.”
Dr. Soren Vandermeer of the imaginary Institute for Artisanal Anthropology described the cafe as “the logical endpoint of Brooklyn coffee culture. Each year the coffee becomes more about everything except the coffee. First it was about origin. Then process. Then the farmer story. Now it is about your soul. The coffee itself is almost an afterthought. A delicious, $11 afterthought.”
The Pushback
Not all customers appreciate the rigor. “I have a job,” said one man who left without coffee after refusing to participate. “I do not have 20 minutes to justify my existence to a man in a monocle before 9 a.m. I just wanted caffeine. I went to the bodega. The bodega did not interrogate me. The bodega gave me coffee in a blue cup and let me keep my dignity. The bodega understands what these people have forgotten.”
The cafe estimates that 40 percent of prospective customers leave during the interview, a figure Holloway-Pyne considers “a healthy filter for commitment.”
The Premium Tier
For dedicated patrons, Intention offers a premium membership in which the philosophical interviews grow progressively deeper, eventually requiring customers to confront their mortality before receiving an espresso. The top tier, reportedly, involves a silent retreat. “Coffee is a journey,” Holloway-Pyne said. “We are simply making the journey longer, more expensive, and considerably more uncomfortable. That is hospitality.”
The evolution of New York City coffee culture has been explored by outlets covering city dining, and broader trends in specialty food retail are tracked by industry bodies such as the Specialty Coffee Association.
The Verdict
Despite, or perhaps because of, its difficulty, Intention has become wildly popular, with a waitlist stretching weeks. New Yorkers, it seems, will endure any indignity for the right cup, or more precisely, for the right story about the cup. “I earned this coffee,” Fitzwilliam reflected, sipping her hard-won, slightly cold latte. “I do not know what I learned. But I earned it. In Brooklyn, that is the same thing.” British readers acquainted with pretentious cafes may consult The London Prat.
The Coffee Philosophers
The cafe employs a small staff of “coffee philosophers,” recruited from among recent humanities graduates unable to find other work, who conduct the interviews with an intensity that some patrons find transformative and others find unbearable. “I studied phenomenology,” said one philosopher, adjusting his apron. “I never imagined I would use it to interrogate a man about why he wants a cortado. And yet here I am, and the work is, in its way, sacred. Each customer is a soul in search of caffeine and meaning. I help them find both, or at least I delay them until they find the door.” The philosophers are reportedly paid in coffee and “exposure to ideas,” an arrangement the cafe describes as “mutually enriching” and labor advocates describe as “concerning.”
The Competing Cafe
A rival establishment has opened across the street with the explicit promise of “no questions, ever,” advertising itself as a refuge for the philosophically exhausted. “We will not ask you anything,” its sign reads. “We will not probe your soul. We will give you coffee and let you leave.” The rival has, predictably, become enormously popular, drawing the overflow of customers who fled Intention mid-interview. Holloway-Pyne remains unbothered. “They sell coffee,” he said dismissively. “We sell understanding. Anyone can sell coffee. Only we make you earn it. The fact that nearly everyone prefers to simply buy coffee is, I think, a damning indictment of modern society, not of our business model.” The rival, meanwhile, reports it is thriving.
Even Intention staunchest critics concede the coffee, once finally obtained, is genuinely excellent, a fact that complicates the simple narrative of pretension. “That is the maddening part,” admitted the man who fled to the bodega. “If the coffee were bad, I could dismiss them entirely. But it is good. It is annoyingly good. They have built an unbearable experience around a genuinely superior product, which means I will, against every instinct, probably go back, endure the interrogation, question my soul, pay eleven dollars, and drink the best coffee in Brooklyn. They have me. I hate that they have me.”
SOURCE: https://prat.uk/
More cafe comedy at The Onion.