coffee & donuts

(1) 

Post-covid economy is hitting the coffeeshops hard. There used to be three Starbucks and a Dunkin within a block of work. Two of the Starbucks and the Dunkin closed, leaving just one Starbucks holding the line.

Since the pandemic, I generally make my own morning mocha with Nescafe instant coffee. But sometimes I crave a mocha in the late afternoon or evening. So I recently picked up a thing of Folgers decaf. Two things I noticed:

1. I was excited for decaf coffee.
2. It didn’t taste as good. I mean, it’s fine, but I definitely notice the difference, especially if I put in my usual two spoonfuls. The Nescafe is better.

Makes me feel old. Getting excited over decaf and having pronounced opinions on kinds of coffee are so boomer coded, to me anyhow.

(2)

I’ve been craving a donut.

On the way to the office last week, I decided to break from my ironclad Starbucks routine and instead pick up breakfast from Belle's Donuts. I found the food court shuttered and dark, with one of the front glass panels smashed in. Google says it’s permanently closed. When did that happen?

tbh I’m not that surprised, it never seemed that busy and was a bit of a revolving door. First the Thai place shut down, then the overpriced dim sum place popped up and shut down, then I never had a reason to go there except for donuts. But I want donuts.

So I spent today’s lunch hour looking for a new donut place. It was a bust. The mall bakery is more of a general bakery, with cheesecake, cupcakes, banana pudding, etc. (It does look good, but they charge mall prices. $10 for Nutella banana pudding.) I couldn’t find the other place Google rec’d—the pin led to an acai bowl shop—but anyway, looking at the fine print on their website, their downtown location is catering only.

Also it’s kind of awful outside. Heat advisory, sun beating down, air like soup. The heat index is 104. There’s another Belle’s Donuts north of the old train station, but I didn’t feel like hiking all the way there and just got my usual afternoon snack from Starbucks. I’m still giving myself human enrichment partial credit for checking out two new places. But I didn’t get a donut.