Golden Apple Chicago Diner

Recommended Listening from the Coffee Maven
24 Hours at the Golden Apple, This American Life

Painting by Steve Connell

My interest in the geography of coffee began at the global scale, in the places from which coffee originates and the patterns of its movement from seed to cup. Those who know my coffee work are aware that my emphasis is on the environmental and social impacts of these geographies.

But readers of this blog -- and students in the second-year seminar that produces most of its posts -- know that I am also interested in the neighborhood-scale geography of coffee shops. I use the term to refer to a variety of independent, coffee-forward businesses, inclusive of those that curate excellent coffee and those that treat it as a utility in service of breakfast. Over the past decade, students in my seminar course have told their classmates and me about a few hundred places that span the entire coffee-shop gamut.

I have not been to the Golden Apple diner in Chicago, though I sit just a mile or so from it as I write this, but I suspect that it falls in the latter of these categories, and despite my desire for a world full of ethical coffee, I'm OK with that for now.

Way back in 2000, a team of some of my favorite journalists spent 24 hours trying to interview every person who came in the door. The result is a full hour of exquisite first-hand accounts of what makes places like this hubs of their respective communities. From the adorable to the pathetic and even unlikeable, a cross-section of the neighborhood as diverse as the neighborhood itself comes through the doors.

Settle in with a nice cuppa and give yourself the gift of an hour of excellent radio: 24 Hours at the Golden Apple, recently rebroadcast on This American Life.

Lagniappe: Chicago is, of course, full of great diners, of which I have enjoyed a few. Even when hotels include an alleged breakfast buffet in the price of a room, we usually prefer to find such places. But this year I found Ray's Bucktown B&B, where I have enjoyed phenomenal breakfasts every morning of three different stays while visiting my kid in the city.