I remember the first time that I ever went to a Barista(the coffee chain) was the one located at the start of M.G.Road in Pune way back in 2002. It was a such a wonderful place at the time. They had wonderful seating, tasty coffee and the place had a very relaxed, easy-going feel. They had the sticky-board where there would be a number of notes by many people commenting about the place and some even professing love for their dear ones!!!Pune being the college city, it seemed to be a favoured hangout of all the cool dudes and dudettes of that time. There was one dude who seemed pretty popular cos every time that he came in, people would immediately start requesting him to play the guitar....yeah they had a guitar as well there!!! I really loved the place and being as I was in school at the time, the idea of going to college suddenly seemed so much appealing to me. A couple of years later when I started watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S. the coffee shop which they used to frequent reminded me so much of the Barista on M.G.Road. My aunt (who makes the most wonderful filter coffee in the world) scorned at me for drinking a 50 rupee cup of coffee. Every morning she would demand that I pay her the 50 bucks for my cuppa and she meticulously remembers our hisaab from those days even today.Anyways people get old and so do places apparently. I went on to college in a forsaken place called Roorkee, don't even bother looking it up on Google Maps, I'm sure it's not going to make it there for a long time. Anyways all the illusions that I did have of college from that coffee shop was shattered to smithereens. Forget about a coffee shop, hell there wasn't even a place where you could get a decent slice of pizza. And do not even mention the cool dudes and dudettes. There were only males and non-males where I went to college. But even there every opportunity that we got, we hitched a ride to Dehradoon, the closest to civilization that we could get. And yes there was a Barista there too. A whole different one at that. This one was much smaller but in a way felt more homely and cosy. And instead of the guitar, here they had Scrabble and pictionary for you to hangout with. I guess the presence of all those boarding schools in the vicinity made a big impact and they even had a bookstore in the back from where you could get a book to while away your time and you didn't have to even buy the book!!!! The Barista was a 2 hour sweaty and crowded bus-ride away but I still made it often. The goodies on offer and the awesome collection of books was simply irresistible.
Despite these frequent trips I did manage to study and at least pass my exams and land a job in an IT sweatshop(kidding, we have air-conditioning) in Bangalore. And guess what, there was a Barista just a 10 minute walk away at the Leela Galleria. What more could I ask for. At 1 in the night, this was one of the few places where you could go to in Bangalore and hope to get something to eat and drink. It is a nice experience sitting out in the open with the chill wind blowing and having a hot cuppa. And what's more if you landed up there on a Friday or Saturday night, you could catch a whole bunch of party people coming in after the 11:30 p.m. deadline dressed in their finest and a little tipsy. In my humble opinion it's one of the finest places to get a share of your eye candy.
But lately my trips to Barista, at least the one in Leela Galleria have been slightly unpleasant. The waiters do not take your orders anymore, you have to place your order and pay beforehand. Even after you have finished your drink, you have to trot your ass back to the counter and order and pay for your refill again. To me, it seems really painful and against the whole concept of relaxing at a coffee shop. The waiters there also seem to keep eyeing your mug and glance at you as if to indicate - "Drink up and Get out". Though Barista will always be something special to me but I must admit that lately I have been migrating towards Cafe Coffee Day, the Bangalore-based chain which is present almost at every street corner here. I wish Barista would come back to it's original style of being the quaint coffee shop with the big brand name.
Barista has been under a number of different owners so much so that I don't believe even the upper management knows who they are working for right now. But that has not affected their identity till date or is it a case of the competition from CCD, Java Green and manifold others taking it's toll. Whatever it is I just want my favorite coffee house back to way it was.
