Coffee Adultery

Coffee shops are one of my happy places. On weekends, I go to decompress from the week — journaling, reading through the Bible, just being still. On Saturdays I usually walk down the block to a neighborhood shop. Every other Sunday, I make my way to a spot near the ocean.

A few weekends ago, I noticed a coffee popup had opened across the street — inside a pizza restaurant that doesn't open until 4 p.m., so the morning hours were all theirs. Two local businesses. No conflict, really. And yet I felt guilty for even considering it.

That guilt has a pattern. On Sundays, when I go to the coffee shop by the beach, there's a Starbucks right next door. I never go in. It feels like a betrayal of some kind. So I gave it a name: coffee adultery.

Here's where the hypocrisy lives, though. During the week, I go to Starbucks regularly. There are two near work — one right across the street, one on the way in. When the day gets rough, I walk over. On the commute, I'll order ahead on the app, do my first email check, and plan my day before I even walk in to grab my cup. No guilt there. None at all.

So what's actually going on?

Is it about optics — wanting to appear like someone who supports local over corporate? Maybe. But that explanation feels too surface-level, because I genuinely frequent the big chains without a second thought on weekdays.

The real answer came to me when I thought about what I felt when one of those Starbucks locations closed. Sadness. Actual sadness. And I know exactly why — a friend of mine was there every morning. I'd stop in, we'd talk, and then I'd head into work. When it closed, that ritual ended. That relationship ended.

The coffee shop by the beach has been around as long as I've lived in California. The memories layered into that place are real.

That's what I'm actually protecting. Not the coffee. Not even the business. The people and the rituals attached to those specific places. The guilt I feel about "coffee adultery" isn't really about loyalty to local over chain — it's about loyalty to what a place means and who it connects me to.

The cup is just the cup. The community is the whole thing.

Think about a place — a coffee shop, a restaurant, a route you always take — that you feel unexpectedly loyal to. What is it you're actually protecting when you keep going back?