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I love the Intelligentsia coffee bar on Abbot Kinney in Venice for its singularity of purpose.

It serves coffee, tea and croissanty-type stuff.

You queue outside, wait for your barista who makes your coffee in front of you, someone else takes your money and you either sit on concrete steps, outside in the alleyway or on bar stools at a bench.

It’s very edgy/industrial design/clinical/echoey/jangly. It has the aura of the pre-op room before they gave me Leg 2.0.

They’ve opened a cafe in on W. Colorado in Pasadena, which serves the same great coffee, but I can’t help but think that they’ve lost their focus.

They do brunch, lunch and dinner, serve craft beers and they have the same order process as Starbucks.

Place your order, pay, walk down the counter to the barista and pick up your coffee.

It’s not as if they yell out “Skinny, decaf, no foam, caramel vanilla chai latte with whipped cream for jb”, but the guy who takes your order looks normal.

Barnes and Noble/Apple Store normal.

No tatts.

What’s the world coming to, ffs…?