The Reason Why I'm Grumpy

The other day while walking through Chelsea, I stumbled upon Café Grumpy, which is nicely tucked away on 20th Street (between 7th and 8th Aves). I was pleased to find another independent and unique-looking coffee shop in the sea of Starbucks that plague Manhattan. So, I decided to give Grumpy a try, only to find out after placing an order for two cups, that my total came to just under $9.00 (which makes each cup, of regular old coffee mind you, $4.50 or so). I don’t care what type of special brew it is, New Yorkers willing to pay this price must be a little insane. To top things off, the barista asked my friend and I whether we wanted to watch them make it…Um, no! It is not that fascinating to see coffee poured and stirred into a paper cup. But I guess that's what the extra $3.00 per cup is for.

After leaving, I took my first excited sip, thinking that this $4.50 cup of coffee better be liquid gold. I found that it tasted, well, it was disgusting! So bad I thought about dumping it and getting some decent coffee somewhere else, but decided against it because that would mean I would have just spent $12.00 for only drinking two full cups of coffee. I forget that a lot of Manhattanites only really care about the look and design of a place, which in Grumpy's case, is perfect. In fact, it is like a Hollywood set version of what a New York coffee shop should look like...it is just too bad that the coffee tasted dramatically bad.

Congrats Café Grumpy, you succeeded at making your patrons (at least one of them), Grumpy!