This story originally appeared on the Gents Cafe Newsletter. You can subscribe here.
I arrived at my favorite coffee shop on Monday morning to get my go-to latte with honey. As I walk in, I’m greeted by the barista by name, we catch up briefly and my order is already being made. I talk to some of the other customers and leave feeling energized and part of a community.
When I first moved to New York City two years ago, this feeling was foreign to me. The daily ritual of grabbing a coffee was very different. I would show up to a new coffee shop almost every day, state my order, exchange a few pleasantries with the barista, and go on my way. It was an exchange of currency for cold brew, nothing more. Bars, restaurants, and other places were no different. A new location every few weeks, anonymous.
The reason for that was simple. Why go to the same places when there are thousands of options? All of my choices were built on the idea of more options, and what I thought I was creating was convenience and novelty.
However, this life of endless choice got stale. I always had a new bar or coffee shop nearby, but I never felt a part of anything. I was a stranger, a tourist, never leaving my mark. I was lacking a deeper community in the city I was calling home.
Now, novelty is exciting and exploring new places is part of what keeps life interesting. But there should be a few things you do on a daily or weekly basis that are consistent enough to build something real.
So I committed. Same coffee shop, same few restaurants, same spots. The boring repetition of showing up created relationships, and those relationships turned routine into ritual. At the bar I know the bartender, the regulars, the rhythm of the place. At the coffee shop they know my name and my order. Sociologists call these spaces third places, the informal spots outside of home and work where real community lives. To find one, you do not need to search far and wide. You build it, day by day, by showing up to the same place and becoming a regular. Turns out the most interesting place I found in New York was somewhere I’d already been.
