Cafehop.com — Café hopping in New York City

This story begins about two years ago, when Luis and I first moved to New York. We were in a sublet in the East Village and were beginning to explore the city, to decide in which neighborhoods we would like to find apartments. We spent one completely frigid day in Tribeca — I particularly remember my feet hurting badly from the cold, made all the worse by the neighborhood’s stone slab sidewalks.

Desperate to find some place warm (and even open, in the desolate section we were in), we were relieved to find Pécan, a gorgeous brick-and-glass-walled café at the flatirony corner of Franklin, Varick, and West Broadway. Sleek cafeteria-style community seating makes sure everyone is always in each other’s business — this is always an idea good in theory but terrible in practice, especially because people tend to leave one seat between parties and then a couple can’t sit with each other if it’s busy. Despite this minor problem and the overall modern aesthetic, the place actually comes off as quite cozy.

We ordered hot chocolates, and they were merely okay, considering that they were nearly $5 each. We enjoyed them much more than we normally would: the warmth was giving us more pleasure than the flavor.

Since that cold day, I returned with Mario on one of our outings. We sat at one of those long tables and annoyed those sitting near us with all our chatter as they tried to work on their laptops. We enjoyed our $4 espressos, if I recall, even if the staff is a bit snotty.

Though Tribeca is New York’s big-bucksiest neighborhood, it is still a bit rough around some remaining edges, and because of the types of commercial spaces there (cavernous and industrial), limited in café options. Pécan is still going strong and will likely be around at least until there is some more competition.

Pécan, 130 Franklin St, Manhattan

This is dumb, I know: Mario and I debated the morality of spending money in an Israeli-owned chain. Whether or not one agrees with our view on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, it’s obvious that wherever the Aroma location on Houston sends its profits, some of that money surely ends up in the coffers of the Israeli government — an organization we believe causes much harm to a people it is actively displacing. We eventually decided that since the parent corporation is in Israel that this might be set up like a franchise, with a flat franchise fee, meaning that whether or not we patronized the shop, the same amount was being sent to the fatherland. Justification can clearly be a mother of invention.

To our chagrin, the espresso is superb, and keeps us coming back if we’re in the neighborhood. I took Luis just last week. Mario himself lives across the street. There’s no way we’re going to be able to ignore this place, seductively wrapped in lusty red tilework and modern black and white accents.

One problem is the service can be rather incompetent. Mario tells me that they screw up his orders all the time, and that Friday night to Saturday night — for obvious reasons, the most competent managers are not working — it gets markedly worse. The last time I was there the cashier left Luis’ espresso off the order, only charging me for a mocha. It was a busy night, and when my order came up and the espresso was missing, the counter guy shrugged and said “she didn’t charge you for it.” You know, instead of apologizing to me and making me an espresso shot right then, which would have cost the company possibly 15 cents including labor, but bought a lot of goodwill. I’m amazed at how so many stores do not understand this.

Anyway, the mochas (and hot chocolates, I assume) are made by placing a few chunks of milk chocolate in the bottom of the cup and then pouring the appropriate hot liquids over it. It’s an attractive presentation and is cute in theory, but in practice you have to stir it for 5 minutes straight to get all the chocolate to dissolve. Not fun.

The food seems good, I had a “bureka treat”: phyllo dough “bread” surrounding hard-boiled egg, tomatoes, pickles, and tahini.

Overall, the product itself is good, but the service is bad not because of any bad attitudes but because of a total lack of competence. I’m sure it’s a problem that will be remedied eventually. The Israeli occupation of Soho is one that otherwise seems to be going well.

Aroma, 145 Greene St (Houston entrance), Manhattan

7am-11pm daily