Tip # 7. Make friends with the coffee cart guy near your building. There will be days in New York when you will be incredibly thankful that at the very least, the stranger you greet each morning remembers you like your coffee light, with one Sweet’n Low, which may be the only nurturing you get for a while. – Garrison Keillor in his article, “Making it in Manhattan”

When I first moved to an inconspicuous block where Chelsea meets the West Village meets the Meatpacking District, a neighborhood old-time lured me in with a smile that lit up his face despite a dark gap from a single missing tooth.
“Hey, beautiful,” he catcalled. “Are you Persian?” I’m Italian and Jewish, but I got this question so often maybe my family was hiding the truth about my adoption from a Tehran orphanage.
“No,” I answered. “Though I get that all the time.” But it didn’t matter what I said; he had already made up his mind. “I am Persian. I think you are too. Can I offer you something, my dear? Anything at all?” he asked, leaning out the window of his rickety steel coffee cart. I guessed his age between thirty-nine and fifty. His skin was smooth and tan, his wide eyes kind with a mischievous glint.
I was born in Seattle. Being a Starbucks snob was genetically ingrained. Setting foot in the place brought back childhood memories of peering into plastic drawers full of brown beans in the original Starbucks, back when there was only one. My mother scooped Colombian roast for her morning espresso. I stood behind her trying to stick my nose in the drawer. In my mid-twenties, I was addicted to the double-soy, sugar-free vanilla latte. Fate in the form of a delicious, overpriced beverage was not available at the corner coffee cart.
Still, I felt an affinity for this man, who in the rush-hour bustle of the city took time to make light conversation before I was shoved into a subway car. I knew he was just like any other salesman, in it for the patronage. I didn’t want to forfeit my latte for his watered-down coffee. Yet when I looked up at his kind brown eyes I couldn’t say no.
“Sure,” I replied. “I’ll have an iced with skim, two Equals.” He poured it into a waiting plastic cup pre-filled with ice. “How much?” I asked. “For you? Free,” he said.
I bit my lip and looked down at the oversized bagels in his window. They resembled alien rocks excavated from an archaeological dig. At only a dollar they were a quarter of the price of my usual beverage, plus he gave me coffee for free, so I bought a whole- wheat bagel. It was chewy and delicious.
The coffee cart is one of those things that makes Manhattan feel like a small town. The guy at the helm knows your name, how you take your coffee, and your carbohydrate of choice to start the day. He asked how I was doing, whether I liked my job, and if I missed my family. (They were mostly still in Seattle.) Soon he knew more about my life than most of my boyfriends, and he knew them, too. “I don’t like him for you,” he whispered about the TV agent. The investment banker got a better review, and I ended up marrying him. My parents divorced when I was four, and I barely knew my father, so maybe I welcomed the coffee guy’s overprotective-dad act.
That was exactly what it was, an act. The no-charge café kept coming for a month until one day it didn’t. He was really a crack dealer, getting his customer hooked before making me pony up. He had gotten me off Starbucks and I was saving twenty-five dollars a week, which I put towards more of his coffee. A one-cup-a-day habit soon turned into five-plus. Once I had to pay, I returned to the designer drug of the overcaffeinated – Starbucks – and my relationship with the street dealer of the cheaper stuff turned ugly.
“Hey,” he yelled out. “You don’t like me anymore?” I waved as I crossed the street, entering the Starbucks via the side door so he wouldn’t see. He soon caught on to my scheme.
He would yell, “You prefer that Evil Empire to me?”
First the guilt was unbearable, and soon things just got brutal. I had a guilt-tripping Jewish mother already, I didn’t need another one. It sent me running for the Frappuccinos, never wanting to look back.
I’d walk down the street the other way to avoid his castigations. I headed west down Fifteenth, one block north then east again to Sixteenth and Eighth, the wrong end of the train. I’d have to walk another block inside the subway. It made me late for work. I was a wreck. I reminded myself of those ridiculous mugs that read “Instant Human. Just Add Coffee.”
“Are you okay?” a colleague asked when she saw me huff into my cubicle, frazzled, for the third time that week.
“It’s just…this guy.”
“Bad date?”
“Bad relationship.”
Angry Coffee Guy was interfering with my morning routine, something I had perfected because I was not a morning person. Running into him was as uncomfortable as bumping into an old boyfriend on the sidewalk, the kind of ex you’d be happy never to see again.
After a year of avoiding his corner, ducking behind Con Ed trucks, I quit my job to freelance. At ten in the morning on my self-imposed first day, I allowed myself a break and snuck by the cart and down the street to try a new little West Village café. As I headed home, he saw me – and the rival cup.
“Hey,” he yelled. “Do you need a bag for your iced coffee?”
I’d had enough. I went over to his window.
“Where’d you get that?” He pointed at the offensive plastic cup of ice and that particular mud-puddle color that comes from mixing with skim instead of whole.
“Down that way.” I quickly changed the subject.
“So what’s your name?” I asked. I was surprised I’d never found out.
“Max,” he said.
I extended my hand, and we shook. “It’s nice to finally know,” I said. This was followed by an awkward silence.
“I started working from home,” I said, wondering why I felt the need to repair our estranged relationship. “I really should come by here more often.”

The next morning I got my bagel and coffee there, and that night I went out. When I came home at 4am, Max had already arrived and was setting up his cart for the morning to come. The father-figure complex resurfaced and I tried to avoid him, embarrassed for him to see I’d been out so late. While he ducked down inside the cart, I attempted to run by. I could not let him see me drunk stumbling home at an ungodly hour. But I couldn’t keep out of his line of vision.
“Hey, you,” he said. “Long night?”
“Sort of, yeah.”
“You go to a club?”
“Yeah, out dancing.”
“By yourself?”
“No, with my girlfriends.”
“You live alone?”
“No, I’m married now. To the one you liked.”
Max flashed his wide smile at that. “You’re up late,” he said.
“You’re up early.” I started to walk away.
“Wait,” he called. I turned around. He was holding up a bagel. My usual, wheat with light cream cheese. I took it and thanked him. “See you in a few hours,” I said. Of course, I overslept and by the time I got outside around noon, he had already packed up and left for the day.
The following week, there was a teenager in the coffee cart with Max.
“New assistant?” I joked.
“This is my cousin.”
The cousin, it turned out, was trained to take over. I recognized an opportunity. Max Junior didn’t say anything if I walked by on my way to Starbucks. He didn’t know who I was and did not get upset if I skipped his coffee. Every day, I waited for the “Hey, you” that didn’t ring out over Fifteenth Street anymore.
I saw Max several months later in Midtown, where he took a busier corner. “Hey, Persian girl,” he called out. We greeted each other like old friends. He offered me a coffee on the house. Without waiting for a reply, threw in skim milk, two Equals and a smile with a missing front tooth. Like most of my relationships with the opposite sex, I liked him more now that he’d moved on without me.