Coffee House Clichés: Comfort in a (Muddy) Cup

Name of Place Visited: Muddy Cup Coffee House
Street Address: 1038 Madison Avenue, Albany, NY
Date and Time: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 from 5:40pm - 6:40pm

*A Coffee House of One’s Own*
I had been attending The College of Saint Rose for about a year when I asked my visiting boyfriend to come with me to a place frequently mentioned by my classmates. The Muddy Cup Coffee House was a new experience for both of us: our hometown of Fonda, New York, is lacking in the coffee shop department as well as any real sense of cultural diversity. Hell, you have to cross the river into Fultonville if you want to get McDonald’s. That’s why I was excited, and a bit anxious, about going to school in a big city (by Fonda standards) like Albany. I would be exposed to urban society and live the college experience.

Situated between the Madison Theatre and Price Chopper on Madison Avenue, the Muddy Cup is right down the street from the St. Rose campus. While the neighborhood is far from glamorous, I wouldn’t call it rough; although the area has had its share of crime and security concerns. As a young female college student who has sat through way too many personal safety lectures, I don’t go wandering about by myself really late at night. But as long as I have my wits about me and keep a firm grip on my purse, I’m fine walking the few minutes from my dorm to the coffee shop after dark.

The inside of the Muddy Cup is much more inviting. In my mind, it is the quintessential coffee house of movies and TV shows: a place designed to entice intellectuals—writers, musicians, artists, poets, wi/fi junkies, college students and professors—and provide them with an environment in which they can hang out and be artsy and cool. Having now been here on several occasions to read, do homework, or relax with friends, I always drink in the guilty pleasure of acting like a typical English major just as much as I savor the shop’s delicious beverages. I know it’s horribly cliché for an English major to patronize a coffee shop, and maybe it’s a bit pompous to consider it a “home to intellectuals.” Of course, I’m not saying only these people belong in coffee shops; and the Muddy Cup certainly welcomes everyone. It’s just comforting and uplifting to find small space in a big world that allows me to feel like a stereotypical English major within its walls. Whenever I walk into the shop, I feel like I’m stepping into an atmosphere I have always known and that has always embraced me, my passions, and tastes.

*Sentimental Sensations*
Speaking of tastes, tonight I am sipping my favorite Muddy Cup concoction: Tiramisu Hot Chocolate. I pick the cup up off of the worn, wooden coffee table in front of me. The waxy cardboard is adorned with renderings of steaming coffee cups and swirling scripts that read “latte” or “cappuccino;” and it’s deep burgundy-wine background matches the interior paint splashed on the walls of the cavernous room. I touch the plastic lid, which is as black as the ceiling, to my lips, letting the sweet, velvety, warm liquid trickle down my throat. Sinking further into my sofa, I feel the covered buttons of the upper cushions push gently into my back. The couch is a large, L-shaped sectional covered in dingy, gold crushed-velvet that I’m sure was plush at one point. Even so, the fabric seems to rub against me as much as I rub against it.

My Grandma DeCicco (my father’s mother) has a sectional at her house upholstered in a material of similar texture, but hers also contains a pull-out bed. In elementary school, this bed welcomed my younger brother and me each Friday night when we slept over at her house. Like any Italian grandmother, she always prepares scrumptious food as an expression of her love and care for us.

I wonder if she would approve of my Muddy Cup hot chocolate; it’s definitely not the strong espresso—or “Italian coffee” as she phrases it—she serves with dessert. Nevertheless, I tilt my head back to collect the lingering drops amidst a residual deposit of thick, saccharine syrup at the bottom of the cup. A flexible floor lamp, placed behind the curve of the couch and positioned above my head, casts buttery column of light down into my eyes. Most of the generally dim coffee shop is illuminated in this manner: various pockets of light exist throughout the room due to the placement of lamps around various seating arrangements. The only other light enters through the large storefront windows from the street—the blaring pink neon of the Madison Theatre Marquee, glowing streetlamps that reveal the faces of ambling pedestrians, headlights of passing cars.

This set up reminds me of my late grandfather. Papa, my mother’s father, loved to read in a special, high-backed green armchair in the living room. He would sit there in total darkness except for the shaft of light beaming down from a hanging lamp he placed directly above. I like to think I inherited my love of reading from him, if none of his other innumerable, estimable qualities. Hopefully Papa would see something of himself in me, sitting here reading or writing, proud of the bookish person who used to curl up in his lap to listen to stories. I bet he would like this place, too; at the very least he’d be able to get a cup of his beloved coffee.

Cigarette smoke wafts through the room as customers enter through the front door of the Muddy Cup, reminding me of the reason why Papa will never join me on my gold couch. Bursts of ground coffee aromas also permeate my senses. However, a fresh, clean scent hangs in the air because the humming air conditioner circulates a refreshing breeze. Across the room, a woman with short, curly brown hair and glasses reads a magazine under the glow of a table lamp. She apparently feels a draft and hugs her coat around her. I’m usually cold all the time like she is, but tonight I feel oddly comfortable with the temperature in the room.

*Charms of the Customary*
Several other Muddy Cup patrons are sprinkled among the mismatched pieces of furniture. Three men working on laptops, all in their late 20s or early 30s, sit at a large table directly across from me in front of the coffee counter. Decked in camouflage, a young male college student sits near the windows, snacking on a bag of chips as he studies the notebooks and worksheets strewn across the surface of a table. A group of girls converse indistinctly above in the loft within the coffee shop.

Underneath this loft a man in his late 40s sits at a small dining room table with a big black briefcase. He wears a dark green pullover, dark shoes, and dark slacks. On top of his head is a very elegant, light brown bomber fur hat, something James Bond would wear on a ski mission/trip a la Roger Moore in The Spy Who Loved Me. He stops working for a moment, pulls out his cell phone, and goes outside the coffee shop to talk. I notice Fur-Man walks with a slight limp as he returns inside—which in James Bond movies is a telltale sign of villainy—and gets back to work, humming along to the music (no doubt his trademark idiosyncrasy). Even enemy spies enjoy the relaxing ambiance of the Muddy Cup.

A young African-American man in his late 20s enters wearing a sharp black business suit, complete with crisp white undershirt, shiny black shoes, and a pink-and-gray striped tie. Taking his coffee from the cashier, he walks across the room to a seat in the storefront window. Suit-Man props his feet up on a coffee table and listens to his iPod through earbud headphones. Soon he answers his ringing cell phone and speaks in a confident, carrying voice, about someone he met earlier today. Apparently it is a famous person who is a “cool man, looks better in person and is taller” than Suit-Man thought. My best guess is an athlete since Suit-Man mentions Iverson, Clemens, and the steroids scandal. I don’t catch the actual name because some of his conversation is drowned out by the drumming air conditioner. He reminds me of the typical business man caricatured in movies and TV: snazzy suits trying to work their way up the chain of command regardless of the cost. Maybe he comes here to revel and participate in the axioms of his career just like I do (if you consider being a college student another type of lifestyle, even if it’s a provisional one.)
Walking back to the large table in front of the counter, Suit-Man tells the Muddy Cup cashier, “One of my interns sells sex toys,” after he finishes on the phone.

It’s hard to discern the rest of that conversation and the cashier’s reaction to it. Surprisingly, there are lots of noises in a place I construe as a spot for rumination. Coffee machines whiz, blenders churn at high frequencies, people chatter. Music plays constantly over the speakers. The woman singing now reminds me of Norah Jones, though I know it isn’t her. It does make me reminisce of an evening this past summer when my boyfriend and I came to the Muddy Cup once again. We were pleased to discover an accordion player giving a free concert, covering such songs as the James Bond Theme (a request from Fur-Man?), the Star Wars Theme, selections from Muppet Movies, and even original compositions. While Matt, a mechanical engineering major, enjoyed the performance, I sensed that his technical mind found it a bit eccentric. At one point I just turned to him and smiled, knowing that for one night he glimpsed into my little world.