Today was the Chicago Marathon -- the day that my husband looks forward to all year long.
In order to be ready to leave our house by 5:00 a.m., I had to get up at 3:00 a.m. I am not a morning person. I'm a night owl, but it wasn't feasible to stay up all night, so I managed to get about four hours of "sleep" before the alarm went off. Amazingly we did leave on time and we also made it downtown relatively quickly. When we pulled into the Grant Park Underground parking facility before 6:00 a.m., my husband was very happy.
Normally I would hang out in the car for awhile after G left to go to the starting area, but today I decided to go ahead and head over to the coffee shop, Intelligentsia, where I always get my pre-race mocha. I thought I remembered that the shop opened at 6:00 a.m. on Sundays, so I figured I could get my coffee, relax for half an hour or so and still have time to make one last pit stop before I headed over to State Street to meet up with E, N, and K.
I was really disappointed when I got to Intelligentsia and discovered that they had changed their hours. : / There was a woman working at the coffee bar and the lights were on, so I opened the door and started to go in only for the woman to tell me that they weren't open yet. Okay, so why was the door unlocked? Now I had 40 minutes to kill before I could get my coffee. I was not happy.
I walked around for a little bit and found the two pastry shops that I wanted to go to later on in the morning. Finally, when it was almost 7:00, I headed back to Intelligentsia. By now there was a cluster of about ten people gathered around the front door. Great. This coffee shop is known for it's precision (some would say fanaticism) about coffee -- nothing happens quickly at Intelligentsia. Even without a line of customers, it can take five minutes or more to get your order. I needed to be in front of the Channel 7 studio at 7:20 but I wasn't sure I would even have my mocha by then.
Fortunately the counter staff seemed to be working a little faster than usual. I placed my order, paid, and then dashed to the washroom. When I emerged, I still had to hang out at the coffee bar a few minutes until my mocha was ready. I waited until I was outside of the shop to take a drink . . . and I experienced immediate and intense disappointment.
Normally the espresso drinks at Intelligentsia are super hot. I really like hot coffee, so where I would order a mocha at Starbucks and ask the barista to make it extra hot, at Intelligentsia, I have never had to ask for that modification. In fact Intelligentsia's mocha is almost too hot. But today . . . the drink was only moderately warm. It felt like the milk had been steamed and then allowed to sit until it cooled to a tepid temperature. Blech. Additionally the espresso was incredibly weak and the chocolate was practically nonexistent. I paid $4.50 and waited over half an hour for this? I will not return to Intelligentsia any time soon.
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