Deep in Hipster Country, Mediocrity Festers
Too cool for you.
This afternoon Yury IMed me: “Wanna go to the Archive?”
me: k
We make our way from the house, on the fringes of Bushwick’s Bodega Belt, past the huge parking lots, parks, and housing projects that serve as the borderlands between my hood and the spooky industrial areas beyond. This part of East Williamsburg is lazily called Bushwick, or “West Bushwick” by the geographically challenged (Bushwick is SOUTH of East Williamsburg). It’s fine; it’s more my neighborhood than Bedford Avenue ever will be theirs.
It doesn’t take long after crossing Flushing to realize you are in yet another one of New York’s unique ethnic enclaves: everyone is vaguely ugly, thin, and pale, with hairy, bony forearms and pants too tight for their concave asses. They amble around the vacant lots and filthy warehouses on their wobbly chicken legs — thighs not much thicker than their calves. But their clothes and hair are fabulous.
In an eerily intact line of old brick tenements on Bogart and Grattan Streets is The Archive, a coffee and DVD rental shop (hipsters like to rent their DVDs in person. why? dunno). I have been here probably 10 times now, and each time I’m far short of impressed. The drip coffee is good, and that’s pretty much all I’ve had except for an okay chai and some iced tea. The employees are usually very nice, but a few of them are jerks visibly annoyed by my presence at the counter, oppressing them with my requests for their wage slave labor. Or maybe my hair isn’t shaggy enough…even though I cut it myself…
The furniture is cool, I like their front wall banquette, even though the shag cover is totally vile, matted and crusted with filth. It has really big windows that would be pleasant if they weren’t swathed in wire mesh. You can plug in your computer, but don’t try to do any substantial work here — the wireless connection is slower than molasses. My Verizon card is faster, let’s put it that way. All this, and the prices go up seemingly every week. Oh, and the music sucks. Sucks.
Believe it or not, they have good bagels. Just authentic enough to be chewy but not authentic enough to hurt your gums. They have good oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies, too. I haven’t had the espresso…wait a second, brb
back — yeah, it sucks. The asshole currently running the counter pulled it way too long — it fills half a small cup of coffee. Tastes like crap. He slammed it down on the counter — “here you go brah, catchya later.” *shudder*
Okay, if you live in the immediate hood, it’s the only place to go. Wyckoff Starr is friendlier, cuter, tastier, but it’s in a total wasteland. Maybe one day soon some benevolent, far-sighted entrepreneur will save us Deep Bushwickers from the indignity of being scowled at by Kansan immigrant poseurs as we order a latte.
Bashful Yury struggles to work at The Archive.
The Archive, 49 Bogart Street, Brooklyn
Mon-Fri 7am-11pm, Sat-Sun 10am-11pm
May 4th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
[…] partner Luis was pissed that I gave The Archive such a bad review in my upstart café review blog — “it’s all we have!” — but I’m just so sick of this half-assed […]
May 5th, 2007 at 10:52 am
Well not really the only option..Potion is a few blocks away and is generally pretty good. The MAIN problem with both places (and honestly most places in Wburg) is the service. Getting kids who don’t really give a fuck to run your cafe is not a good idea.In the cases of both Potion (Len and Jen) and Archive (Jon and Craig), the ownership couldnt be nicer and humble…it’s the staff that sucks. But the question is……who do you get to man these spots? In the type of hood that they exist in…it’s probably the best idea to staff them with people who resemble the clientele..meaning hip looking kids. None of these kids have these jobs as the main thing in their life so reason dictates that they will be lethargic and ambivelant. I also am still waiting for some really smart person to open a spot in the hood hat excedes mediocrity. It will happen and it will be very successful.
May 5th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
Yeah, I keep forgetting about Potion. I’ll get there some day soon.
I get your point about the staff pool but cafes all over the city and the country are staffed with hipsters, and I have only rarely been treated liek such crap as I have at this place. Again, this isn’t to say they’re all jerks, a lot are nice.
Still hoping for another café this side of Flushing.
May 7th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
I really like the term “bodega belt” — can I get a formal definition of it though?
May 7th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
Ah it was just a cute phrase, but I’d say that area ends just before Flushing on the east, but as you get closer to Central it curves sharply down toward Jefferson Streetish. I’m sure before ‘77 it went all the way to Flushing.
May 10th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
I have never said “brah” in my life and am incapable of making a poor espresso. Nice touch though. Really adds to the picture you took behind my back. Asshole? That’s a bit much. Why don’t you just tell them I was eating a baby at the time if you want your meager audience to hate me so hard?
Did you stare at me in loathing glee while punching out your masterpeice, spitting espresso between your teeth in repulsion? I mean who does that? Who willingly (masochistically) does something they hate so much and then blames it on the help? I would never do that.
You’re a mean person, and you shouldn’t come back to Archive until you learn how to deal.
And I’ve never been to Kansas.
Catchya later~
May 10th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
A ringing endorsement of the service at the Archive. This is a REVIEW BLOG, you dingbat — I tried the espresso, it was crap. That’s not masochism, it’s part of the “job.” You got a bad review, too bad so sad, maybe you should try not sucking. That would help. Plenty of positive reviews on this site, so it’s not me. The last thing I want is to trash anything in my own hood but I’m not gonna sugar coat anything.
Maybe you should stop working in the service industry “until you can deal” with criticism.
May 10th, 2007 at 11:18 pm
The service at the Archive for the most part is fine. What I can’t get past is the music. IT SUCKS! To run in and grab some videos or a quick cup of coffee is okay.If you want to get some work done this is not the place.
May 11th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
Wow….If the Archive dudes completely unprofessional response is indicative of the types of people that work there I think I may reconsider supporting it. How lame.
May 11th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
Completely unprofessional response? How about this completely unprofessional review blog? You’re just a bunch of haters. Lame.
May 11th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
I am sure Craig and Jon would be thrilled to know that their employee is arguing online with a reviewer who thought he was a jerk. Kind of proves the reviewers point, no?
May 12th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
Hey Jeremey…… I didn’t write a crappy review when you served me those soggy fries and forgot to ask me if I wanted a hot apple pie did I?
May 13th, 2007 at 2:55 am
i like your observation about the kansan (most likely) behind the counter. its hard to believe these kids think theyre cool.
May 13th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Haters. All you people do is project. And on that note I’m out.
May 14th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Ha ha. At least he’s now aware that he uses terms like “brah”. I can only hope he’s also become aware that he’s working for tips and needs to make a cup of shut the fuck up before he serves other people their morning brew. Dude, you’re still using surferspeak in your responses. Dig your hole deeper–maybe you can reach Java by sunset.
May 14th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
Current patrons of The Archive,
Please allow us to apologize for any perceived lax service on our end. We try very hard to staff our coffee shop with people who are friendly, courteous, interesting, and most of all, good baristas. It is very troubling to read this ‘war of words’ about the one thing that we care most about, service. We appreciate every customer that comes into our store and hope that comes through.
We understand that this forum is a good sounding board to air any grievances and we welcome all criticism, assuming it’s constructive. However, we don’t think it is fair to admonish one of our employees for being upset about being personally attacked. We’re just letting you all know, we read this stuff, and it doesn’t go unnoticed, or unaccounted for.
Jeremy, we’re sincerely sorry you had a bad experience, please come in for a shot of Espresso on us.
Warmest Regards,
Jon and Craig
PS Any music requests? Brad moonlights as a DJ.
May 14th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
That’s a classy response, though I must clarify that I never named any one employee, and in fact, there were several there that day. The photo I took was a random one of the front of the shop — the flash was on, nobody was hiding. His back being in the picture was not meant to implicate him, and I didn’t even notice he was in the photo. I suppose he recognized himself in the description — which makes his objections odd.
Further, this wasn’t one experience, as I purposely wrote this after at least 10 visits. I still like the place a lot, but your espresso is the pits — or at least, this one guy is a bad barista. The service has been bad or the employees have been rude for most of those visits.
Anyway, I’m not owed anything, but since I thnk nobody knows my face thus far, I’ll keep visiting and in a few months might re-review the place.
And yes, I admit I am very much enjoying this. I’m surprised this has gotten nearly as much attention as it has!
May 30th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
[…] Changeling in Bed-Stuy challenges my characterization of Bushwick proper as the Bodega Belt, and that her hood might have more bodegas per capita. Mm-mm, girl, you need to take a walk up in […]
June 4th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
[…] espresso needs its own paragraph. It is the worst espresso I have had so far in New York City. The Archive in Bushwick, whose espresso is the absolute pits, at least has a pathetic attempt at crema on top. Dean and […]
June 14th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
I recently had a hilariously bad experience at The Archive as well. Basically they forgot to make 3/4 of what I ordered and when I did get my items they were either poor or given to me with no care whatsoever. It really depends on who you get I think…I have never found anyone there to be very friendly but the sort of hip-hop looking guy (I know thats a lame description….buzzed hair…plain t-shirt with “urban gear” logo,etc) that i got last week was extremely unpleasant. Again, the owners are nice but the staff can be a real downer, which sucks because it’s exactly the kind off place that I would love to support.
November 30th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
I have been to the Archive a few times and have liked every experience. Only once has an employee seemed like he wanted to go home, but you can’t always catch everyone on their best day. Yesterday around 2pm were the nicest employees yet. I actually enjoy their espresso and also enjoy the fact that they tamp it themselves. I have been to a few places lately where pressing a button is the only means of making their espresso and it makes me cringe to know I paid $3-4 for a latte after that. There seem to be some employees at The Archive who actually take pride in what they do. I like the atmosphere as well; it’s cozy. Everyone has different opinions on places and that’s the beauty of being able to write a review. Well, I’m off to the Archive..