Please Can We Quit It With This Already?

Philz Continues Long Tradition of Caffeinated Pretension With "Coffee Artists"

Philz’ owner Phil Jaber has already successfully convinced the Bay Area’s leading venture capitalists that the swill served by his establishment is worthy of multi-million dollar startup status. But now Jaber has boldly upped the game once more with the groundbreaking introduction of coffee “artists.”

Interviewed as part of a Chronicle series on 24th Street entitled “A Changing Mission,” Jaber eschews the more recently popularized (and ultimately meaningless) term of “maker” in the act of grasping for something more authentic: “This is not coffee. […] This is art. I don’t have barista makers. I have artists.”

It seems that the recent influx of venture capital into his homegrown, sixteen-store micro-chain has thoroughly convinced Jaber of the necessity of adopting the tech industry’s habit of self-aggrandizement. Jaber doesn’t just employ any old schmoe able to pour hot water over burned and ground up plant matter. No, he’s positively contributing to the artist community by employing its members. And if his employees are artists, then of course Philz is itself in fact making art at the low low price of $16 a pound.

All of this leads to a weird alternate reality in which Phil Jaber is some patron saint of the food service arts, and we are the consuming masses hungry for his next creation. I think I’ll pass. Besides, Subway already employs enough artists for my taste.

[Photo Still Taken from “A Changing Mission”]

Comments (32)

This is the predictable endpoint of our culture’s obsession with food and “foodiesm.”

And the SF Libtard Endpoint of hating anyone who is more successful than you.

Yea, lets hate on Phil now!  I moved to 24th a bit before that place opened up, great place at the time, and great now. 

Philz coffee is delicious.  Phil, himself, is a sexist egomaniac.  

In the early days of Philz, when it was just Phil and the remnants of his corner store – before it went full-on coffee shop – I went in there for a coffee. He made it for me and the inclusion of mint made it interesting. He did point out, in his words, the big tits on someone walking by. He told me how he’d like to, you know. It was pretty creepy. I rarely have gone back. I usually end up there on holidays when every other shop is closed. Last Thanksgiving I realized something about the coffee. If you remove the cardamom, sugar, cream, and mint, you have really bad coffee. The additives mask how bad it is.

Yes!  Exactly!  Not to mention that every coffee will taste amazing when you put whipped cream in it (which is what Phil does).  There’s nothing special about his coffee, and certainly not worth listening to a masagonist just to get a cup.

I like Phil’s. But I just want to point out an alternate interpretation, which is that Phil is just trying to help make his low-level employees feel valued. Serving coffee is kind of a thankless, low-paying job, and it may just be Phil’s way of saying publicly that he appreciates and values their day-to-day work, without which he wouldn’t have a business.

GG I get what you’re saying, but if Jaber wants to make his employees feel valued, he could give them end-of-year bonuses (which, maybe he does). If he wanted to say “publicly that he appreciates and values their day-to-day work” he could say that sentence, exactly. It would be way less ambiguous than calling them “artists.”

Here’s the thing: San Francisco actually does have real artists. You know, people that make art (some of them may even work at Philz to pay the rent). And many of those artists are struggling to survive/stay in a city that has become increasingly inhospitable to them partially as a result of the very same influx of money that Jaber is benefiting from. In publicly calling his food-service employees “artists” Jaber is adding insult to injury.

Words have meaning, and his co-opting of the term “artist” to suit his means has an impact on how we view actual artists and their place in the city. San Francisco may be turning into a town where the only artists that can afford to call it home are the ones serving me coffee in the morning–but there’s no need to cheer that process on. 

A friend of mine joked about answering one of the myriad of ads for “Rock Star” this or that’s and showing up to the interview in spandex with a bottle of jack in hand and subsequently trashing the place.


With all the crap that’s floating to the surface in San Francisco, you’re going to rag on Philz? Seriously, if you’re that bored and can’t find anything else to complain about, let me offer a few suggestions… start with douchebag white dudes who moved into the Mission since 2009 and any other asshole transplant who thinks they speak for the neighborhood they helped gentrify.  

Ha I wonder when you moved here…

Oh I don’t speak for the neighborhood that I didn’t help to gentrify.  But I do hope that my white skin  residing here is a start to helping gentrify it.  At least get the other white guys - who’ve had all the opportunity in the world (being that they’re white) - to stop panhandling at the 7-11.  Although I guess it doesn’t really work that way huh?  

I think the only 7-Eleven is actually in Bernal. But whatever.

There’s one on 18th near Castro also

This post is not only mean-spirited, but also nonsensical. It’s certainly not journalism. Phil Jaber built a successful business from nothing. Clearly his success indicates many people like his coffee and his coffee shops. If you aren’t one of them, just shut up and enjoy your Starbucks. 

Kinda like you being a “blogger”… 

Except the part where he does create blog posts and philz baristas do not create art

Really? Hating on Philz now? What is with you and Kevin? If you hate the very things you are covering (the Mission and Silicon Valley) why are you doing it? Can you get any more pathetic?

If you hate these writers why read their blog?

Have you ever actually met Phil?  If you’re a cute girl I’m sure he’s made is presence known.  If you’re not a cute girl, he’s certainly made his opinions known.  I’ve never met a business owner who talks more garbage than Phil.  Finally someone is taking off the crown that Phil so proudly put on his own head

I met him and he’s a weird one. I can corroborate that he has said sexist and unseemly things, pervy really, to me thinking we were bros.

remember, Phil is Arabic, and they are know for employing flowery language (and a heaping or three of bullshit) when it suits them. It cultural. If you’ve lived in that part of the world, ya know what I mean. 

That’s just a way of excusing his behavior.  This is not an “Arabic” thing, this is a disgusting and entitled Phil thing.  It is also not “flowery” language, it is sexist and deragatory language.  Just because you’re a specific race that doesn’t justify treating women like objects that are here for your viewing pleasure.  I’ve traveled in the middle east and while there is a large disparity of rights between men and women and it’s pretty clear that women are second class citizens, (overall) I found that men were respectful to women.   I’ve seen more publicly sexist behavior in Central & South America.   Don’t make excuses for Phil, unless you want to be in the same category as him

I stopped drinking philz years ago because of a suspicion that the blends had flavorings/additives that weren’t on the label.

This blog needs a [Hate] tag.

C’mon Jack, you can do better that this.

I like what you said in the comments though. More meat there.

Complete drivel. No-name bloggers build up, then turn coat on their once-beloved bastions of hipster elitism. Move to the city a couple of years back, then bitch about “gentrification.” Then, continue your crusade by wediting sophomoric nonsense, passed off as journalism whilst focusing immense efforts promoting horrible music and dumpy bars for “locals.” 

This rag is circling the drain.

No-name commenters build up, then turn coat on their once-beloved bastions of hipster elitism.

Artist……..Bullshit Artist. People have been making delicious coffee for centuries without the histrionics.

He should get a job doing something useful, like booking ballet rehearsals and mediocre alterna-comics at a wannabe nightclub no one cares about in between penning up whiny blog posts about how the hipsters that keep you in business are ruining the neighborhood you moved to a couple years ago. 

So I guess porn is art.