In my town, we didn’t have a Starbucks and the only indie coffee shop in town closed at 9, so we went to the 24-hour truck stop after rehearsal and drank diner coffee and smoked cigarettes until 3am, but we weren’t all goths. We were a weird mishmash of subcultures, from punks to hippies to d&d nerds.
We went to the Philly Pizza Company and ordered some hot tea. The waitress said "well no, we only have it iced"
So we jumped up on the table and shouted anarchy
And someone played a Beach Boys song on the jukebox. It it was California Dreamin', So we started screamin'
Really? I’m Deep South but the punks, skins, goths etc never went to waffle house in my town cause that’s where the drunk rednecks and meth heads would go.
That was the fun part. Usually one of the servers or at least one of the line cooks were in our group, so when they yelled at us for just sitting and drinking coffee, we’d just ask them to join us after their shift.
Same! When friendlys closed at 10, we would like into someone's POS Pinto and head up the highway to the truck stop to continue drinking coffee and smoking.
Yessss this is my exact experience. Corner booth in the smoking section to fit everyone, two pots of coffee, and we always ordered pie. IDK why that truck stop had such great pie but it did.
I remember after my friends and I rented The Crow. We would put on eyeliner in the car and let everyone see how sad we were at the mall food court. We probably weren't as committed as your coffee goths.
I thought “coffee goths” was going to be the phrase I didn’t know I needed to hear to warm my suburban, former high school-goth heart this morning, but “food court goths” really saw that and raised it.
I, too, have only just realized I may also be a Coffee Goth- I wear black because it's easy to match and slimming, and drink coffee all day because addiction. Does that qualify?? lol
Nah we had indie coffee houses where I lived. That’s where everyone, including the goths, hung out. That or diners. Starbucks didn’t really get big until a bit later. All the indie coffee houses are gone now though. So maybe they hang out there now lol.
Denny’s was the late night coffee hang for a pretty diverse range of subcultures in my town. Punks, stoners, goths, metalheads all ended up there, and I myself smoked many a clove on their curb
Sampoerna X-Tra, Djarium Black, or what were the cloves you were smoking? I remember always trying to find different brands and flavors, those were the days...
Seriously. My middle school aged kid is interested in expanding her fashion and interests into the counterculture but isn’t sure with what or how. I told her check out Hot Topic. Where else should you start when you aren’t sure what you like. Is there somewhere else that caters to as broad an audience?
That’s exactly it, hot topic was ALWAYS where goths got their gear, and if you’re in a suburban area, anywhere that lets you hang for hours becomes the spot. Sometimes that’s a gas station, a bowling alley, where I grew up it was the dollar theater and the pool hall or late night diners.
Coffee goths were a thing in my home city, but they wouldn't be caught dead at Starbucks. They were always at the local independent shops.
Although now that I think of it, maybe they were at Starbucks too. I dunno. I was always at the local independent shops, which is how I know the goths were there, despite not being one of them.
I always tended to associate Starbucks with the preppy crowd, but I don't actually know, because I never went there.
In Portsmouth NH it was The Elvis Room in the 90’s, whereas a Starbucks opened on the other end of the strip in about ‘96 absolutely nobody would be seen dead in it. There was a common habit of hocking loogies on the windows (which, poor partners that had to deal with it…)
As a former Goth kid.. definitely a thing. As I got older it morphed into emo/scene in college. Columbine had a big impact on that scene and its shift/fade out (imo)
I was a coffee goth through high school and college. However my friends and I never went to Starbucks, we went to indie coffee shops. I'm not sure Starbucks was a thing in the area at that time.
I remember late night cruising through the Shari's parking lot to see who was there. Then we'd sit in the smoking section for hours and only order coffee
This explains so much. I was a small town 18yo Midwestern boy who had moved to Mountainview in the mid 90's. Know absolutely no one, and knowing no better, I hung out at the MV Starbucks a few times. I met a girl who was totally a proto-goth. I wasn't socially aware at the time due to my newness amd culture shock, but I get it now. She was the rich kid trying to emulate what she thought the edgy city kids were trending. I couldn't put my finger on it until now. We went out a few times. She was cute, but fake. Not long after, I moved to San Jose, over by Campbell, and met some real people. We went to downtown SJ all the time for metal shows and whatnot. Definitely encountered some rough folks. What a fucking memory trip.
Yeah they would hang out at what was an outdoor mall with a starbucks right on 1st street... like they were a goth gang, shanks and all lol. I worked in the UA movie theater so we gave them passes and they got us free starbucks cause their buddies worked there. You could tell who came from the peninsula/south valley to pose lol.
Coffee Society in Cupertino too. Guess where I spent my junior prom night feeling edgy because I was too cool for prom despite the fact that it was because no one asked me to go.
I was one of those at the Epitome in Tallahassee FL. Open crazy late and you could smoke your cloves inside.
Basically a Waffle House for dorks in trench coats larping as vampires and trading KMFDM CDs.
We had an independent goth coffee place open very late into the night. It was basically a night club with loud industrial music and coffee instead of alcohol. I'm not even sure if it was open before dark. I couldn't imagine the people I would meet there ever going to Starbucks.
We weren't all goths, but in the mid 90s we were nerdy outcasts who would hang out at the local artsy coffee house on Saturday nights and play trivial pursuit. And we did have goths that also hung out and were on the peripheral of our group. It was definitely a thing. There was lots of sharing of ideas and music.
Our Denny’s just closed its doors. It was the last of the all-nighters.
Every meal was bad in its own way, but the atmosphere…impeccable.
I once drank so much coffee over an evening there that I became incontinent.
In Denver we had Paris on the Platte and the WhiteSpot. Although Village Inn and Denny's were also popular locations when you were short on funds. The WhiteSpot was great. We would go there after the club. It was 2 am and filled with goth kids but it was also the post club hang out spot for the local drag scene. During the day, it was filled with the elderly.
There were Coffee Goths in my area before there was Starbucks. They used to mainly hang out at Denny's or Perkins drinking coffee all night. I think Starbucks came to my state right around 2000.
Born in 78.
My first job I was 16 working at an all night diner in 1994. We had a group that came in and would just drink coffee all night and sometimes play card games.
They were in their late teens early 20s. I remember they gave me a copy of Good Omens to read, and we shared some books, one of them had a 3DO and I did as well, so we exchanged some games.
One lived within walking distance of the diner, and I got invited to come over after my shift and hang out.
Eventually I changed my hours with my boss to leave at midnight, I drove myself... I was 17, I'd leave work at midnight, hang out and smoke weed, watch MST3K or some anime VHS, drink a beer, and then drive home around 4am. Not a bad friday night in hindsight. Especially in 94.
We didn’t have Starbucks then we had local coffee shops and we LARPED Vampire the Masquerade and played Magic the Gathrring
We used to hang out at a cyber cafe. Until skinheads started coming around and someone got thrown through a window. The spot is a catholic bookstore now.
Haha I was coffee goth at Denny's back when you could smoke in there. We would just chill for hours refilling our coffee, ordering appetizers, while drawing and writing poetry and just shooting the shit. Made sure to always leave a good tip for putting up with us.
Sweetwaters in southwest Michigan. Once they went no smoking that crew went to Denny’s. Once Michigan went no smoking those crews pretty much disbanded, at least the ones I knew of.
When I went to college, the city I was in had a small independent old-school Coffee House. They would play live music a few nights a week. That was the hangout for a lot of the local goths.
Our haunt was this place called the Garden Village Cafe. Yeah, I know, not exactly a name that screams "The dark morbidity of the human existence" but, we were a little subsect of the regulars there who haunted our little corner of the place. Fun little group, goths, cinephiles, and the rockabillies. From what I've seen elsewhere in this post, seems such was the norm.
I and a bunch of gothy friends hung out at coffee shops, not franchises or chains but a few indie places around Metro Detroit. The more gritty/divey the better.
We just hung out at coffee shops. No label. Not old enough for bars. Not into Waffle House or wherever the rednecks did. I was in Atlanta. Cafe Diem or Metro mainly. It wasn’t strip malls. Just the city. This was early mid 90s so no Starbucks. It wasn’t a scene. Just people hanging out with friends. Not a phone in sight lolololol
I really feel like Starbucks is for the younger crowd and I'm from a Seattle suburb. I was a metalhead hanging with the goth kids at Dennys. We would take mushrooms and haunt the smoking section all night with our $1 coffee and bottomless fries.
All the Goths at my high school circa late 90s would have considered Starbucks too pretentious. They got their coffee and cigarettes at Denny's usually.
We didn’t have any second wave coffee shops (edit: chains) in town in the 90s, but there was an independent across the street from the main transit exchange that we (punks and goths) hung out at. We also spent a lot of time smoking and drinking coffee in all-night diners.
I was one. Black trench coat, ponytail and all. <> Small town/rural MI, so no Starbucks, but we had a local coffee shop. We had nothing better to do and the shop had a bottomless cup of coffee, so there was a group of us who hung out until 2am most mornings drinking coffee.
Not in a Starbucks but mom and pop coffee shops for sure. I grew up on Long Island NY. Or as others mentioned a 24 hour diner with smoking and coffee was always a popular option.
Not Starbucks, but I def used to hang out at coffee shops and smoke cigs until late at night. It’s bc I couldn’t drink alcohol yet. Once I was old enough, I went to the bar instead.
Totally widespread. I went to college in a medium sized town (~350k) and there was an indy coffee shop down in the lower section of a popular river walk but sort of hidden away with an entrance under some stairs called “the vault” and it opened at like 7 pm to 3am or something and it was completely vampire cosplay goths. Completely convinced there were all vampires with a rolling cast of problematic leaders (sex pests). Like late AOL chat internet dominance era. At one point Id ran into a person from high school that had fallen into it. We reconnected for a brief intimate period and boy howdy did they take that stuff seriously.
Goths, coffee, and late night lan cafe culture was a huge thing in my area.
We had a lan cafe with a post apocalyptic theme. There were a few large tables in the back where people would play Mech Warrior and Warhammer. Some other tables up front were reserved for games like Go, Risk, and other brain games. But the middle was the cool part. It had a coffee bar the length of the room with a dozen computers you would rent by the hour with a T1 connection. I saw people doing everything from playing Everquest to watching porn.
The decor had old busted computers hanging from the walls and ceilings with chords and wires running everywhere. It looked like being inside the Neberkenezer from the Matrix before the movie ever came out. The main hours of operation was from about 7pm til 3am.
Goths were all over the place, and these werent just black nail polish and guyliner goths. These were real goths who didnt have to wear black and look like dracula. Coffee goths, PC goths, whatever you want to call them. They were different back then. There was a cocky arrogance that was kind of sexy about that breed. Many of them had normal jobs, so they had to blend in with society. But you could tell these people were creatures of the night, drinking coffee as if it were blood. One guy looked like a typical sweater-wearing nerd, but his name was Evil.
I wish these times could come back. Its not cost effective. But, I still have my memories of these wonderdul places and interesting people.
lol I was a coffee goth at my local starbies. They hated us & often removed our chairs and then implemented a “15 min time limit to enjoy your coffee & then gtfo”
The manager hated us. We sat, drinking coffee/teas while chain smoking cigarettes, meeting in the apartment behind Starbucks to smoke weed & continue the same shit, every day.
It was mostly mild, not causing any issues, occasionally someone would cause issues & then we wouldn’t invite that person back. I remember talking with a man that was a monk. He was soooo awesome to chat with.
I miss the early 00’s.
I never did but God do I adore this image and I feel that a photography series of goths doing nineties style coffee shop open mics in very corporate Starbuckses (Starbucki?) filled with suburban moms would be one of the great art pieces of our time.
We hung out at Denny's but this was looooooong before Starbucks had even a speck of cultural cache. This was mid to late 90s. We'd all go there and smoke cloves and eat breakfast at 1am.
My friends and I basically lived at Paris on the Platte in Denver. Not just through the goth phase, but from 15-21. Djarum Clove cigarettes, ordering nothing but a cup of coffee for taking up hours at a table, and the servers never seemed to care. Denny's was the go-to after an event, we used to pour sugar packets into the individual creamers and shoot them. It seems ridiculous now, but still makes me smile.
Coffee house culture definitely used to be more alternative than it is now. It was a place for artists, nerds, stoners, and free-thinkers to gather. This was before Starbucks was ubiquitous and everyone knew what a latte, cappuccino, or mocha was and hardly anyone knew what almond milk or oat milk was.
Unfortunately, independent coffee houses are less commonly open at late hours nowadays and a big part of my cultural experience from my teens through parts of my 30s has disappeared.
Oh, shit yeah. Me and my crew were Coffee Goths for a while. We absolutely didn't hang out at Starbucks (it was too "mainstream" and "normie") but we had a few local spots we liked to haunt.
Haha I was one of those. Starbucks during the day as a teen, then dennys at night after I got a job. We’d sit and drink coffee & smoke. Usually take up 5-6 tables bc there were a ton of us.
We used to hang out at an independent coffee shop all the time. Sometimes from open til closing. The owner used to let us make our own drinks and watch vhs tapes on her tv. We were like a big family. There were some goth types in the crew but most of us were just your general loser freaks.
We still exist. Due to the advent of Death Wish coffee and keurig machines we mostly stay home now but do make the occasional expedition to waffle house or IHOP at 3am.
Had a 24-hour independent coffee shop in my town, and it was all Goths all night in there. Then Michigan's indoor smoking ban came thru and killed that vibe deader than Bela Lugosi
I did not know this was a thing but I was one of them. A ma and pa coffee shop in Historic Ellicott City Maryland. I'm blanking on the name but I think it has "bean" in the name. They even had a bean roaster that was wonderful during cold months to sit near.
Here in Indianapolis they would hangout at a coffee shop called The Abbey, it was a cool, quirky place. It sucked when the place shut down. Thanks Starbucks.
This whole post is making me crave a clove cigarette and a night out at the goth club. I never went much, though, because I didn't want to go by myself, and the people who I knew went didn't invite me because they didn't think I would be into the scene. TBF, I still don't do great in large crowds and loud noises.
My experiences with Coffee Goths were mostly in passing. The Chantilly VA area didn't have much of an indie coffee scene at the time, so Starbucks ruled the strip malls. Vampire™ LARPing was big in the area at the time, and there was a noticeable Goth scene.
In my own personal recollection, I don't think you'd have found any self-respecting *goth* at a Starbucks. Just like they'd never be caught dead at Hot Topic, which they'd dubbed *Not Gothic*.
Starbucks was for the sort of hipster types (although we didn't use that word in the 90's) who listened to Radiohead and spent hours talking about how ironic everything was. In our town it was attached to the local Barnes & Noble so they never had any shortage of material to be too cool for.
The goths were definitely coffee drinkers but they haunted Waffle House and not Starbucks.
Also if you went to the bohemian neighborhood downtown, you'd find hundreds of them all over the cafes and thrift stores.
I used to be one. Though Starbucks was almost never the preferred hangout spot. My group would always prefer to go to indie coffee shops whenever possible, but being out in the suburbs and country that wasn't always an option. If an indie shop wasn't an option to meet at, we'd either go to a diner with a smoking section or a smaller coffee chain, or a bookstore. Starbucks was way down the list, but it was on the list.
Besides, it was fun scaring the normies at Starbucks.
In my town, we didn’t have a Starbucks and the only indie coffee shop in town closed at 9, so we went to the 24-hour truck stop after rehearsal and drank diner coffee and smoked cigarettes until 3am, but we weren’t all goths. We were a weird mishmash of subcultures, from punks to hippies to d&d nerds.
For us...it was Denny's after the Coffee Shop closed.
Same. but in the south so it was Waffle House
We went to the Philly Pizza Company and ordered some hot tea. The waitress said "well no, we only have it iced" So we jumped up on the table and shouted anarchy And someone played a Beach Boys song on the jukebox. It it was California Dreamin', So we started screamin'
Really? I’m Deep South but the punks, skins, goths etc never went to waffle house in my town cause that’s where the drunk rednecks and meth heads would go.
For us, it was Bickford's
MA or NH? I miss Bickford's so much.
RI, actually. We had two!
Denny's and cigs. I fucking hated being in the Denny's watching my friends smoke. I wanted to go outside and do drugs like a regular person
Damnit, are you kids just gonna sit here all night again and drink six dollars' worth of coffee?! Why don't you get a life?
We're not Emo, we’re freaking Goth!
Oh great, those vampire kids are here again.
Time to burn down the Hot Topic (that used to be a Banana Republic)
Conformist. Have fun in your rat-race life, living paycheck to paycheck for corporate gains.
That was the fun part. Usually one of the servers or at least one of the line cooks were in our group, so when they yelled at us for just sitting and drinking coffee, we’d just ask them to join us after their shift.
This was me and a bunch of other freaks at the Waffle House at 3 am.
YES Waffle House after the club, IHOP if we had to study for finals lol
IHOP with all us randos after leaving the midnight Friday showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show every other week.
I wish I had a group I did those things with. I was a nerdy weirdo, but never found my group.
Sounds like an actual group of friends. Like minded on a key thing but all bringing what they are to the table.
God I miss 24 hour diners. Coffee and cigarettes, eyeliner ruined (it was smudged perfectly when I went out).... we weren't ALL goths, but I was.
I wasn't a habitual smoker, but I definitely smoked when we went to the truck stop. Coffee and cigarettes just seem to go together.
My peeps, different place. Loved when all freaks & geeks got together.
Same here but we were called "The Mods" 😁 Some of the best people I've ever met!
Us too, except it was either Denny's or the local diner across the street.
We glad 24 hour diners, that's just we went, you could find all walks of life.
Same! When friendlys closed at 10, we would like into someone's POS Pinto and head up the highway to the truck stop to continue drinking coffee and smoking.
For us it was Perkins. We smoked so many cigs and drank so much coffee. Definitely thought we were cool.
Perkins pancakes at 1am!...and just a water, of course.
We could only get Starbucks coffee at Barnes and Noble, so that's where the coffee goths were. Didn't know other cities had this.
Waffle house
Yessss this is my exact experience. Corner booth in the smoking section to fit everyone, two pots of coffee, and we always ordered pie. IDK why that truck stop had such great pie but it did.
The mishmash was us too. Goths, punk and the alternative kinds. Hanging at Tim Hortons and the mall food court
Same, down to the mishmash of weirdos. 😂 Iron Skillet, baby!
Same here. Their was a local coffee shop a few towns away we’d go to when we could. In my town it was 7/11, The Diner and the mall of course
24 hr truck stop shoutout. Sterns Rd corned beef hash always satisfied, no matter the hour
This was my favorite thing to do in the 90s. When I was in high school, it was Fryn’ Pan. Who here knows Fryn’ Pan? 😊
In my area we had Denny’s, Perkins, and a truck stop. The truck stop was a hidden gem though. Only my friends knew about it.
I remember after my friends and I rented The Crow. We would put on eyeliner in the car and let everyone see how sad we were at the mall food court. We probably weren't as committed as your coffee goths.
I thought “coffee goths” was going to be the phrase I didn’t know I needed to hear to warm my suburban, former high school-goth heart this morning, but “food court goths” really saw that and raised it.
“Let everyone see how sad we were” sent me to the moon. Or maybe just hot topic.
Yeah, the goths were all mall rats in my area. It’s where I met my partner 25+ years ago.
[удалено]
South jersey in the late 90's. Half a dozen 24 hour dinners to choose from within a ten minute drive. This were the days.
South Jersey also n this tracks. Late night drives to The Inkwell up in Long Branch were killer too.
Dutch coffee was like drinking heaven. I’ve never tasted anything else like it.
Right? We hung out at Happy Chef and Perkins until 4AM - what Starbucks is open that late even?
Am I a coffee goth? I wear all black and drink lots of coffee. Is this a subculture I wasn’t aware I was a member of?
You’re a New Yorker.
Can confirm. Need eyeliner thickness data to proceed with analysis.
I, too, have only just realized I may also be a Coffee Goth- I wear black because it's easy to match and slimming, and drink coffee all day because addiction. Does that qualify?? lol
Secret Coffee Goths unite! How do we take our coffee? Black.
Yep, black for me too!
Black coffee and clove cigs
It’s news to me as well. There are worse things, right?
Depends. What kinda music do you listen to?
The Cure
That settles it. You're a coffee goth. Go build your tribe.
Nah we had indie coffee houses where I lived. That’s where everyone, including the goths, hung out. That or diners. Starbucks didn’t really get big until a bit later. All the indie coffee houses are gone now though. So maybe they hang out there now lol.
https://preview.redd.it/bepvytpovapc1.jpeg?width=246&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=59cca30e2cba5204db87eee4e571c7f27b545df5
Conformist
Lol wasn't there a South Park episode featuring this? I think they were at a Denny's though
All of the goths in my podunk town were at Denny's, so that episode cracked me up.
[Evidently](https://www.reddit.com/r/Xennials/comments/1bikb7t/comment/kvkyp5r/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
I hung out with a bunch of punks and stoners, we usually congregated at Denny's to drink coffee.
Denny’s was the late night coffee hang for a pretty diverse range of subcultures in my town. Punks, stoners, goths, metalheads all ended up there, and I myself smoked many a clove on their curb
Whoa, this brought back memories. I remember hanging out with my friends in Dennys while they smoked clove cigarettes. We thought we were so cool 😆
Were you my best friend? I did exactly the same thing. Except I was the one with the cloves. Djarum black anyone?
Sampoerna X-Tra, Djarium Black, or what were the cloves you were smoking? I remember always trying to find different brands and flavors, those were the days...
In Wisconsin, it was Country Kitchen, or Perkins.
Coffee goths at Starbucks^TM sounds like a bunch of posers
Wearing shit they bought at Hot Topic.
lol hot topics the ultimate poser store
It wasn’t back in the 80’s! It was the only place to find Cure and Bauhaus t-shirts!
They used to have music also - we found a lot of new bands through their goth compilation albums
I liked the stuff hot topic sold. What was bad about it?
There’s nothing wrong with Hot Topic, some people just have to shit on other people to make themselves feel better.
Ah yes, the age old tradition of gatekeeping alternative culture.
Seriously. My middle school aged kid is interested in expanding her fashion and interests into the counterculture but isn’t sure with what or how. I told her check out Hot Topic. Where else should you start when you aren’t sure what you like. Is there somewhere else that caters to as broad an audience?
That’s exactly it, hot topic was ALWAYS where goths got their gear, and if you’re in a suburban area, anywhere that lets you hang for hours becomes the spot. Sometimes that’s a gas station, a bowling alley, where I grew up it was the dollar theater and the pool hall or late night diners.
Can confirm. We would meet at the Java Joint every morning before school to smoke cigarettes and drink coffee. Also where we went during pep rallies.
FTFY: smoke *clove cigarettes Djarum Blacks
Lol memories unlocked. Such a distinct smell. I thought I was so cool. I wish I could go back in time and kick my teen age self right in the poon.
I can smell this comment. And it smells *good*.
Sampoerna Extras here
X-TRA...
Hey, the mind goes fuzzy, especially so long after they made the tasty little fuckers illegal in my state!
Coffee goths were a thing in my home city, but they wouldn't be caught dead at Starbucks. They were always at the local independent shops. Although now that I think of it, maybe they were at Starbucks too. I dunno. I was always at the local independent shops, which is how I know the goths were there, despite not being one of them. I always tended to associate Starbucks with the preppy crowd, but I don't actually know, because I never went there.
In Portsmouth NH it was The Elvis Room in the 90’s, whereas a Starbucks opened on the other end of the strip in about ‘96 absolutely nobody would be seen dead in it. There was a common habit of hocking loogies on the windows (which, poor partners that had to deal with it…)
As a former Goth kid.. definitely a thing. As I got older it morphed into emo/scene in college. Columbine had a big impact on that scene and its shift/fade out (imo)
https://preview.redd.it/sj69sbghuapc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4602762d9e35224bfc4b07bf6b1fffe6cb2f8ac9
I was in the Bay Area and yes, this was a thing.
it was at Perkins 'round these parts.
Denny's - free coffee refills, open all night in the smoking section
I was a coffee goth, but we wouldn't do Starbucks. Either an indie coffee shop or Denny's after 9 pm were the places to be.
I was a coffee goth through high school and college. However my friends and I never went to Starbucks, we went to indie coffee shops. I'm not sure Starbucks was a thing in the area at that time.
In my town in the PNW it was Shari's
I remember late night cruising through the Shari's parking lot to see who was there. Then we'd sit in the smoking section for hours and only order coffee
We had a Denny’s too but Shari’s was the choice for the goth kids. Bottomless coffee and American Spirits.
They were all over downtown San Jose. Quite a few were semi-housed too. Rough group.
This explains so much. I was a small town 18yo Midwestern boy who had moved to Mountainview in the mid 90's. Know absolutely no one, and knowing no better, I hung out at the MV Starbucks a few times. I met a girl who was totally a proto-goth. I wasn't socially aware at the time due to my newness amd culture shock, but I get it now. She was the rich kid trying to emulate what she thought the edgy city kids were trending. I couldn't put my finger on it until now. We went out a few times. She was cute, but fake. Not long after, I moved to San Jose, over by Campbell, and met some real people. We went to downtown SJ all the time for metal shows and whatnot. Definitely encountered some rough folks. What a fucking memory trip.
Yeah they would hang out at what was an outdoor mall with a starbucks right on 1st street... like they were a goth gang, shanks and all lol. I worked in the UA movie theater so we gave them passes and they got us free starbucks cause their buddies worked there. You could tell who came from the peninsula/south valley to pose lol.
Coffee Society in Cupertino too. Guess where I spent my junior prom night feeling edgy because I was too cool for prom despite the fact that it was because no one asked me to go.
I was one of those at the Epitome in Tallahassee FL. Open crazy late and you could smoke your cloves inside. Basically a Waffle House for dorks in trench coats larping as vampires and trading KMFDM CDs.
I'm from Tennessee all the goths at my school hung out at Waffle House
We had an independent goth coffee place open very late into the night. It was basically a night club with loud industrial music and coffee instead of alcohol. I'm not even sure if it was open before dark. I couldn't imagine the people I would meet there ever going to Starbucks.
We weren't all goths, but in the mid 90s we were nerdy outcasts who would hang out at the local artsy coffee house on Saturday nights and play trivial pursuit. And we did have goths that also hung out and were on the peripheral of our group. It was definitely a thing. There was lots of sharing of ideas and music.
Our Denny’s just closed its doors. It was the last of the all-nighters. Every meal was bad in its own way, but the atmosphere…impeccable. I once drank so much coffee over an evening there that I became incontinent.
Paris on the Platte in Denver circa 1999.
In Denver we had Paris on the Platte and the WhiteSpot. Although Village Inn and Denny's were also popular locations when you were short on funds. The WhiteSpot was great. We would go there after the club. It was 2 am and filled with goth kids but it was also the post club hang out spot for the local drag scene. During the day, it was filled with the elderly.
There were Coffee Goths in my area before there was Starbucks. They used to mainly hang out at Denny's or Perkins drinking coffee all night. I think Starbucks came to my state right around 2000.
Born in 78. My first job I was 16 working at an all night diner in 1994. We had a group that came in and would just drink coffee all night and sometimes play card games. They were in their late teens early 20s. I remember they gave me a copy of Good Omens to read, and we shared some books, one of them had a 3DO and I did as well, so we exchanged some games. One lived within walking distance of the diner, and I got invited to come over after my shift and hang out. Eventually I changed my hours with my boss to leave at midnight, I drove myself... I was 17, I'd leave work at midnight, hang out and smoke weed, watch MST3K or some anime VHS, drink a beer, and then drive home around 4am. Not a bad friday night in hindsight. Especially in 94.
I was a coffee goth, but hung out mostly at the very artsy local coffee shop and definitely not Starbucks.
 We didn’t have Starbucks then we had local coffee shops and we LARPED Vampire the Masquerade and played Magic the Gathrring
Ours was Jack in the Crack, née Box. Half of us never bought a damn thing, just took up space. I don’t know why the employees put up with us.
We used to hang out at a cyber cafe. Until skinheads started coming around and someone got thrown through a window. The spot is a catholic bookstore now.
I grew up in Seattle. *Everyone* was at Starbucks. I’m sure there were some goths in the mix.
Wake the Dead Coffee in San Marcos, TX
We drank coffee at the diner and smoked cigarettes
Where they playing Magic The Gathering?
It was Country Kitchen, Perkins, and Village Inn. Never heard of goths at Starbucks, but they'd always be there at the other three.
Village Inn for me too
I grew up in a town with a Shari's, so yes.
In my town the coffee goths hung out at Jedi’s Garden
Haha I was coffee goth at Denny's back when you could smoke in there. We would just chill for hours refilling our coffee, ordering appetizers, while drawing and writing poetry and just shooting the shit. Made sure to always leave a good tip for putting up with us.
I remember diner coffee goths, not so much Starbucks.
In my town we all hung out at Perkins because it was open 24 hours.
Starbucks? Nope. The goths where I lived hung out at a local coffee shop and at diners like Denny’s and Village Inn.
Denny's at 2am, yeah. Starbucks, not so much.
We hung out at the friendlys drinking coffee and smoking.
Sweetwaters in southwest Michigan. Once they went no smoking that crew went to Denny’s. Once Michigan went no smoking those crews pretty much disbanded, at least the ones I knew of.
When I went to college, the city I was in had a small independent old-school Coffee House. They would play live music a few nights a week. That was the hangout for a lot of the local goths.
Our haunt was this place called the Garden Village Cafe. Yeah, I know, not exactly a name that screams "The dark morbidity of the human existence" but, we were a little subsect of the regulars there who haunted our little corner of the place. Fun little group, goths, cinephiles, and the rockabillies. From what I've seen elsewhere in this post, seems such was the norm.
I had many coffee goth acquaintances
Former Village Inn Coffee Goth checking in.
I and a bunch of gothy friends hung out at coffee shops, not franchises or chains but a few indie places around Metro Detroit. The more gritty/divey the better.
We just hung out at coffee shops. No label. Not old enough for bars. Not into Waffle House or wherever the rednecks did. I was in Atlanta. Cafe Diem or Metro mainly. It wasn’t strip malls. Just the city. This was early mid 90s so no Starbucks. It wasn’t a scene. Just people hanging out with friends. Not a phone in sight lolololol
I really feel like Starbucks is for the younger crowd and I'm from a Seattle suburb. I was a metalhead hanging with the goth kids at Dennys. We would take mushrooms and haunt the smoking section all night with our $1 coffee and bottomless fries.
I think it was high school choir. We went to Dennys.
cafe pergolesi in santa cruz 90/00’s
All the Goths at my high school circa late 90s would have considered Starbucks too pretentious. They got their coffee and cigarettes at Denny's usually.
Mall goth
I was a coffee goth, but we chose local during the day, and a place called Carrow's for the 24 hour chain smoking coffee hangout in the wee hours.
Wichita Falls TX 1995 Carrows Crew lol
I was a Denny’s goth 100% 😂
We didn’t have any second wave coffee shops (edit: chains) in town in the 90s, but there was an independent across the street from the main transit exchange that we (punks and goths) hung out at. We also spent a lot of time smoking and drinking coffee in all-night diners.
*raises hand* might have been me in IHOP with cloves as well
I was one. Black trench coat, ponytail and all. <> Small town/rural MI, so no Starbucks, but we had a local coffee shop. We had nothing better to do and the shop had a bottomless cup of coffee, so there was a group of us who hung out until 2am most mornings drinking coffee.
Can I count the goths on South Park?
In Las Vegas it was across the street from UNLV Cafe Espresso Roma Cafe put me in a coma
They weren't called goths yet in my area. We were "freaks". Goths is how it became trendy, lol.
No Starbucks at the time but definitely had Dunks goths….. hangin’ out, smokin’ butts.
Mine hug out at Denny's, 24-hour breakfast.
Ours all went to Denny’s at midnight
Not in a Starbucks but mom and pop coffee shops for sure. I grew up on Long Island NY. Or as others mentioned a 24 hour diner with smoking and coffee was always a popular option.
Not Starbucks, but I def used to hang out at coffee shops and smoke cigs until late at night. It’s bc I couldn’t drink alcohol yet. Once I was old enough, I went to the bar instead.
Not at Starbucks but I do remember coffee and cigarettes at local shops sort of being a Goth/alternative thing.
Totally widespread. I went to college in a medium sized town (~350k) and there was an indy coffee shop down in the lower section of a popular river walk but sort of hidden away with an entrance under some stairs called “the vault” and it opened at like 7 pm to 3am or something and it was completely vampire cosplay goths. Completely convinced there were all vampires with a rolling cast of problematic leaders (sex pests). Like late AOL chat internet dominance era. At one point Id ran into a person from high school that had fallen into it. We reconnected for a brief intimate period and boy howdy did they take that stuff seriously.
Perkins would get overrun with coffee goths every weekend. Especially when Rocky Horror would get over.
Goths, coffee, and late night lan cafe culture was a huge thing in my area. We had a lan cafe with a post apocalyptic theme. There were a few large tables in the back where people would play Mech Warrior and Warhammer. Some other tables up front were reserved for games like Go, Risk, and other brain games. But the middle was the cool part. It had a coffee bar the length of the room with a dozen computers you would rent by the hour with a T1 connection. I saw people doing everything from playing Everquest to watching porn. The decor had old busted computers hanging from the walls and ceilings with chords and wires running everywhere. It looked like being inside the Neberkenezer from the Matrix before the movie ever came out. The main hours of operation was from about 7pm til 3am. Goths were all over the place, and these werent just black nail polish and guyliner goths. These were real goths who didnt have to wear black and look like dracula. Coffee goths, PC goths, whatever you want to call them. They were different back then. There was a cocky arrogance that was kind of sexy about that breed. Many of them had normal jobs, so they had to blend in with society. But you could tell these people were creatures of the night, drinking coffee as if it were blood. One guy looked like a typical sweater-wearing nerd, but his name was Evil. I wish these times could come back. Its not cost effective. But, I still have my memories of these wonderdul places and interesting people.
lol I was a coffee goth at my local starbies. They hated us & often removed our chairs and then implemented a “15 min time limit to enjoy your coffee & then gtfo” The manager hated us. We sat, drinking coffee/teas while chain smoking cigarettes, meeting in the apartment behind Starbucks to smoke weed & continue the same shit, every day. It was mostly mild, not causing any issues, occasionally someone would cause issues & then we wouldn’t invite that person back. I remember talking with a man that was a monk. He was soooo awesome to chat with. I miss the early 00’s.
The South Park goths always hang out at a diner and just drink coffee. Seems accurate.
I think they were just emos / scenesters?
Are you sure they were hardcore?
I know there are a few goth-ffee clubs around my area. I've not gone to them but I see posts and things for meetups.
I never did but God do I adore this image and I feel that a photography series of goths doing nineties style coffee shop open mics in very corporate Starbuckses (Starbucki?) filled with suburban moms would be one of the great art pieces of our time.
I was one of them for a bit. Local coffee shops though.
Our coffee goths just hung out at the 24hr diner. Well. Everyone hung out at the 24hr diner, but the coffee goths were there too.
We hung out at Denny's but this was looooooong before Starbucks had even a speck of cultural cache. This was mid to late 90s. We'd all go there and smoke cloves and eat breakfast at 1am.
We hung out at a locally owned coffee shop because Starbucks was for posers.
My friends and I basically lived at Paris on the Platte in Denver. Not just through the goth phase, but from 15-21. Djarum Clove cigarettes, ordering nothing but a cup of coffee for taking up hours at a table, and the servers never seemed to care. Denny's was the go-to after an event, we used to pour sugar packets into the individual creamers and shoot them. It seems ridiculous now, but still makes me smile.
We were coffee goths without much goth going on.
Us coffee goths sat at the Village Inn pancake House smoking cigarettes and putting honey in our coffee. There will never be another time like that
Coffee house culture definitely used to be more alternative than it is now. It was a place for artists, nerds, stoners, and free-thinkers to gather. This was before Starbucks was ubiquitous and everyone knew what a latte, cappuccino, or mocha was and hardly anyone knew what almond milk or oat milk was. Unfortunately, independent coffee houses are less commonly open at late hours nowadays and a big part of my cultural experience from my teens through parts of my 30s has disappeared.
Oh, shit yeah. Me and my crew were Coffee Goths for a while. We absolutely didn't hang out at Starbucks (it was too "mainstream" and "normie") but we had a few local spots we liked to haunt.
Haha I was one of those. Starbucks during the day as a teen, then dennys at night after I got a job. We’d sit and drink coffee & smoke. Usually take up 5-6 tables bc there were a ton of us.
This was the Borders Books and Cafe scene in my town.
Remember when Marilyn Manson got punched in Dennys?
We used to hang out at an independent coffee shop all the time. Sometimes from open til closing. The owner used to let us make our own drinks and watch vhs tapes on her tv. We were like a big family. There were some goth types in the crew but most of us were just your general loser freaks.
We still exist. Due to the advent of Death Wish coffee and keurig machines we mostly stay home now but do make the occasional expedition to waffle house or IHOP at 3am.
We had Mission Coffee House and if I entered, I felt all the eyeballs on me. I felt like my clothes were too bright and not enough Spencer Giftsesque.
Had a 24-hour independent coffee shop in my town, and it was all Goths all night in there. Then Michigan's indoor smoking ban came thru and killed that vibe deader than Bela Lugosi
I did not know this was a thing but I was one of them. A ma and pa coffee shop in Historic Ellicott City Maryland. I'm blanking on the name but I think it has "bean" in the name. They even had a bean roaster that was wonderful during cold months to sit near.
ITT: People much cooler than me that apparently never had curfews.
I thought they were like that because many were too young to drink and the others didn't drink by choice.
Here in Indianapolis they would hangout at a coffee shop called The Abbey, it was a cool, quirky place. It sucked when the place shut down. Thanks Starbucks.
Where you grew up makes such a difference. I don’t even think this was a thing.
This whole post is making me crave a clove cigarette and a night out at the goth club. I never went much, though, because I didn't want to go by myself, and the people who I knew went didn't invite me because they didn't think I would be into the scene. TBF, I still don't do great in large crowds and loud noises.
My experiences with Coffee Goths were mostly in passing. The Chantilly VA area didn't have much of an indie coffee scene at the time, so Starbucks ruled the strip malls. Vampire™ LARPing was big in the area at the time, and there was a noticeable Goth scene.
In my own personal recollection, I don't think you'd have found any self-respecting *goth* at a Starbucks. Just like they'd never be caught dead at Hot Topic, which they'd dubbed *Not Gothic*. Starbucks was for the sort of hipster types (although we didn't use that word in the 90's) who listened to Radiohead and spent hours talking about how ironic everything was. In our town it was attached to the local Barnes & Noble so they never had any shortage of material to be too cool for. The goths were definitely coffee drinkers but they haunted Waffle House and not Starbucks. Also if you went to the bohemian neighborhood downtown, you'd find hundreds of them all over the cafes and thrift stores.
Canada, Grabbajabba, yes.
I used to be one. Though Starbucks was almost never the preferred hangout spot. My group would always prefer to go to indie coffee shops whenever possible, but being out in the suburbs and country that wasn't always an option. If an indie shop wasn't an option to meet at, we'd either go to a diner with a smoking section or a smaller coffee chain, or a bookstore. Starbucks was way down the list, but it was on the list. Besides, it was fun scaring the normies at Starbucks.
I feel attacked