BERKELEY, Calif. — Upon collecting data from multiple Strada Baristas, scientist Riya Chatterjee has confirmed that the Caffe Strada Baristas hate you specifically.
“No, the baristas aren’t just ‘naturally grumpy.’ You are the problem,” revealed Riya. “You, saying your order too quietly the first time, so you waste time having to repeat it. You who takes ten ungodly years to take out your wallet, take out the right card, and insert it properly into the chip reader. What is this, your first time using a goddamn chip reader? You who stays here hours on end in our outdoor space using our Wi-Fi and our electricity despite ordering one small iced latte with no tip. You are the problem.”
Caffe Strada barista Daniel Gomez corroborated the results.
“All I have to say is, if you have ever had the suspicion that I didn’t like you, it wasn’t your social anxiety. It was you observing me not liking you,” Gomez explained. “You’re not an empath. You are a human being with eyes. We originally closed the indoor space because of COVID , but we’re keeping it closed indefinitely because we’re actually sick of you being in our visual plane.”
UC Berkeley junior Annie Chen was disheartened by this news.
“It’s really hard to think our [the Caffe Strada baristas and her] three years together meant nothing,” lamented Chen. “I always thought I would be like a cool regular, but they treat me as if I’m just one in 40,000 students that frequent their business. Did my weekly vanilla lattes with oat milk mean nothing to them?”
Riya urged the public not to take this revelation too harshly, because ultimately, “that would be really insecure and whiney of you.”
Photo by Sharon Hahn Darlin