Faire Gallery Cafe

I love the Faire Gallery Cafe in Capitol Hill. There’s something about a place that serves both wine and cappuccino that makes me feel so cool when I go there to “write” on my “computer” and “check my all-touch smart phone” for “good nearby sushi.” Just kidding about the last part.

Or am I?

Best of all, in an act of delicious pretension, this place is an actual art gallery.  Which makes this intimate, family-run business substantially different than the sawdust-on-the-floor dive bar my family would open.

But this family is a class act.  Somehow they appreciate art, groove to the right music, and make the most delicious sandwiches I have ever had.  (I think the secret ingredient is sweet potato, but they won’t tell me.) 

However, the problem with coffee/wine bar fusions is that while you get the best of both worlds, you also get the worst of both worlds. Like, the creepy customers who are unique to bars and the creepy customers who are unique to coffee shops. Together. Mixing it up.

Here are some archetypes I observed in this particular cafe. And they are all true.

Really aggressive but untalented sketch artist
He is aggressive. He taps on the window, beckons you in, and then shows you really bad stencils he drew of his mother and aunt.

But here’s the thing: he’s also really bad. And he glares at you when you tell him you don’t have the money and then self-consciously take out your laptop.

Sad girl at the counter
It would be one thing if this were a coffee shop, because the baristas would be elbow deep in milk-steaming, shot-pulling, baby-kissing, and all the other things that make coffee shops more wholesome than bars.

And it would be one thing if this were a bar, because then the sad girl — while sad — would be expressing her sadness using harmless words, and most of them would be drowned out by Rihanna’s “Please Don’t Stop the Music” or its base-heavy equivalent.

But in a horrible fusion of bar and coffee shop, the sad girl at the counter also has a laptop. And instead of slurring about her boyfriend, she’s typing him an angry letter in Microsoft Word. And she’s using an online thesaurus and reading the changes she makes out loud.

This is exactly why people with laptops should not have the ability to drink wine in public.

Napping hipster boy
Seriously. Order something else or leave. An 8-ounce Americano does not make this cafe your fucking bedroom.

Annoying friend of bartender
This is pretty self-explanatory. In this case, she went to an Ivy League school like, 18 years ago and will not shut up about it.

Man who takes an informal poll on what to do with his partner on Valentine’s Day
Again, self-explanatory. If I had any opinion worth sharing, I wouldn’t be Sad Girl at the Bar.

Kidding.

Seriously, though — mind your own goddamn business.