A Winnings Girl

Maggie says:
Can I just take a moment to celebrate my love for Winnings Coffee?

When it comes to places with great coffee, yummy food, and a side serving of Internet, we coffee-loving wireless addicts have a couple of good choices in town. But sometimes I feel the need to proclaim my allegiance in the always-heated battle of local coffee spots. And because I'm pretty nerdy and not flashy and never in the mood to spend $10 on a sandwich, Flying Star and especially the new Satellite on Central can be just a little... much for me.

So I'm a Winnings girl, through and through. I love the lack of flash, the damn good coffee, the not-trying-too-hard staff, the relaxed atmosphere, the fact that I always see people I like here. Yep, I see people I know at Flying Star all the time, but here I see people I like. Flying Star might be a good option for late-night grub, but I can't ever really just be me there. I always feel like people are looking around wanting to be seen or something. But not here at Winnings. We can do our own thing wearing pajamas if we like, and that's okay. We're safe here, safe to be seen unshowered and wearing dirty clothes and working on our own thing and hugging friends when they walk through the door. It's a little home away from home.

Apparently I'm not the only one: at the table next to me, a little boy and his mom are eating breakfast. He just asked her: "Mom, why is this your favorite place? We come here every time, no where else." And she responded to him, "Well, why would we go anywhere else, honey?" True story.

This all goes back to one of my favorite Ms, who three years ago in a breaking point during a particularly stressful project at school, looked at me and said, "I think we need to go to Winnings." I was brand new in town and had never been here before. That Mikaela is always right, you know. I hate that sometimes. :-)