Coffee Shop Chronicles

Coffee shops have food too so we’re going to include them on chow with chaz. Coffee shops are some of my favorite places on earth. My love story with coffee started like most…I thought it was gross. I would try my mom’s and hated it!! Eventually I matured, some would argue that, but I had my first 8 am class in college. For some reason, these were so much more difficult to wake up for than being at school by 7:45 my entire life. Anywho, I figured it was time to try that awful beverage. So I dove right in with the most intense coffee you can find, a white chocolate mocha. Holy moses this was delicious. As of writing this, it has probably been over a decade since I had one. I eventually started drinking it with cream and sugar and finally evolved into feeling as cool as possible…”room for cream and sugar?” “no thanks.”

In college, I would do all of my schoolwork (which if you knew me, wasn’t as much as it should have been) at Milledgeville Starbucks. During grad school, hours a day were spent there. I spent much of my twenties still being drawn to Starbucks. As I developed a love for different roasts from places all over the world. This led me to trying various coffee shops around Athens and new ones whenever I visited a new city. I developed an infatuation for these places. The variety of beans matched the varieties of coffee shops there are out there. My Sunday afternoons in Athens, were always spent at one of the many coffee shops. Sometimes the local chain of Jittery Joes (caremello and spiced dirty chais!), 1000 Faces or Choco Pronto which still roast some of my favorite coffee I have ever had to Local which had the largest variety of coffee of any place I had been. It wasn’t necessarily the coffee that drew me to these places though, it was the places and the atmosphere. Anytime you walk into a place and hear “the usual?” it just makes you feel at home.

It may seem crazy, but one of my biggest worries when I was moving from Athens to Knoxville was leaving behind those places that had grown very dear to me. I was quite worried that I wouldn’t find that in Knoxville. Again, I totally understand if that is bizarre to you, but these were my sanctuary’s. If you’re reading this, then you can probably figure out that I love to write. (You’ll see at the end that I just paused right there to take a picture for the blog…from the coffee shop in which I am writing). Theres a 98% chance that any blog of mine that you have read was written from one of these shops. If you have received a text from me just checking in, its probably because I was sitting in a coffee shop just reflecting on life. To me, these places truly become a home away from home. Back to those worries, as you could probably guess from the picture and words above, I have found those places in Knoxville. I don’t get “the usual” question but I do get “oh you’re changing it up today” or “Chaz with 1 Z”

As I searched for my footing in this new city, Partial has become that place in the city that feels like home. At this point, I can safely say that I have been to A LOT of coffee shops, and I can also safely say this is my favorite. The shop opened not longer after I moved here. Kelsi and I tried it a few times but would go to others as well. I still venture out from time to time, Wild Love Bakehouse has incredible pastries to go with their coffee, KBrew is my Knoxville version of Jittery Joes, Seed has my favorite fancy coffee (what I call anything outside of just regular coffee) in their PB&J shaken espresso, Commonplace which is in an old bank and that makes for a really cool atmosphere, and several others throughout the city that offer tremendous drinks as well as environments. Partial is something different though. Shay and Murph have created a shop like no other. Everyone who walks in feels like family. Kelsi jokes that its our Cheers. It really does feel that way.

That was a lot of words. If you read them all, God Bless You. I hope you find your place where everybody knows your name. New cities and life changes can be hard, but they can also be incredible. I hope yours are incredible.