Please Can We Quit It With This Already?

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”]