sandiegojoe: My Gramps just passed recently and...

Thursday, January 26, 2012

My Gramps just passed recently and we were close, so I was feeling a bit fragile yesterday, but the San Diego sun helped encourage me to get out and DO Something, so when I swung into Daily Grinds, I found what we all look for in a family owned business that’s been in the same location for 18 years—warm hospitality and conversation.

Located in the College Area Business District near SDSU on El Cajon Blvd. (adjacent to Montezuma Rd.) Daily Grinds has been giving the Starbucks across from them a run for their money; winning customers over who would order food and then step across the street for coffee. Frida (co-owner with her brother Fred), recalled one such customer, “For years [he] would pick up breakfast here then go to Starbucks… One day I said, I’ll make you coffee—it’s free! He always buys his coffee here now…”

Short Disclaimer: My refrigerator is bare and I’m running on zero cups of coffee AND I’m trying to sit and write through hand tremors… All I want to do is go back to Daily Grinds and order another Soy Latte and eat their French Toast all over again—calories and girlish figure be damned!!!

Folks, I’ve been driving by this little diamond in the rough for over a year telling myself I’m going to stop, and now that I have it is all I can think about… There is no other way to describe this gem than to call it what it is: A Fatal Attraction. Let’s face it, if I eat French Toast and Bacon everyday of my life it will most certainly be fatal… But their coffee… Ohhh, can you hear the music open in a sunny meadow and Julie Andrews belting out “The hills are alive…” with the sounds of me enjoying some damn effing good coffee!!!

If I haven’t disclosed before, I recently found out that I have a little problem with lactose, which tends to throw a kink in gett’n my coffee drink-on especially with all the espresso options out there. Those who do soy because they ‘LIKE’ it may not understand that it is HAAAARD—really freek’n HARD to find a place that can make a good Soy Latte, much less a DAMN GOOD Soy Latte (Just think what they can do with milk…). Most places make them taste like cardboard dipped in day-old drip. It’s a hard-knock life for the lactose-challenged. We’re like other marginalized groups in society: Lefties, the boss-eyed, Objectum Sexuals… But we all want what everyone else wants…to enjoy coffee in all its many incarnations.

I know I’ve created a review system and if you want to ‘review’ it via my Mission’s Tab go right ahead. From here on out stars will represent their categories, but for the sake of brevity, not every category will get a write-up. Besides, I’m frigg’n hungry!!! AND WAY overdue for my coffee!!!

Hide the kitchen knives, pet bunnies, and buy a small handgun Daily Grinds! Because like Glenn Close, you’ll have to put me down to keep me away…

Stars: 5

Price: $ (College Student Budget—under five-dollar to make you hollar)

Until next time, remember to say, “Hello” to your neighbor and stay classy San Diego!