The Best Cup of Coffee I've Ever Had.

The store where I work, Pierson's Building Center has a small cafe/bakery annex located inside the main store. It's one of I think five Ramone's Bakery and Cafe locations in the area. A couple things to note:  Piersons provides free coffee to it's customers and employees. The other thing to remember is that I am an employee of Piersons.  Just to be clear, this isn't Premium Ramones Cafe coffee they're giving away. It's whatever is good-enough-to-drink yet, give-away-free kind of coffee.  This is what I usually drink because I'm a cheapskate and it gets me through the day.  Now onto my story about the most perfect cup of coffee I've ever had. 

It was fall 2002 if my memory serves me. My band was on tour on the East Coast. We had just played the previous night in Atlantic City making our way back to Worcester Massachusetts.  It was an overcast morning traveling on the New Jersey Turnpike.  

example of a toll road service plaza oasis. 

Now, what most people living on the West Coast dont know is that all over New England are toll roads. And being that every time you exit you have to pay a toll, they've set up these convenient highway oases (oasises?) that you can enter from either direction without paying to exit the road. These usually consist of a large gas station, one for each direction of traffic exiting and a bunch of fast food and mini-marts all under one roof. KInd of like if a truck stop and a shopping mall food court had a baby.   Since it was morning we went for the Burger King but to our disappointment this wasnt an actual Burger King. It was a truck stop express BK with premade food under a lamp with no employees. Being that it was nearly 11:30am. There were only a couple stale breakfast sandwiches left.  So we turned around and saw a Dunkin Donuts.  Being from the San Francisco bay area, we'd never really experienced Dunkin Donuts or knew what it had to offer. I ordered a maple old fashioned donut and some kind of breakfast sandwich I think... and a coffee.   The nice lady working there asked if I wanted cream and sugar.  I said yes expecting to get a couple packets of sugar and maybe a powdered creamer packet, but to my surprise she just handed me a lidded to-go cup of coffee.  I asked about the accoutrements and she just nodded and said "its in there"  In my head I was like "WHAaaaaatt?!!!!!!!!!!!"  How do they know how I like it?  I'm very particular about my cream and sugar levels... she never asked me.  I was VERY sceptical. Then... I took a sip.  Temperature, perfect.  Coffee flavor, perfect. Cream level, perfect.  Sugar level, PERFECT.  OH MY GOD. I couldn't believe it how did she do this?   I made sure to tell the woman how perfect it was. I was very excited and probably freaked her out a little. People can be a little more surly in the Garden State. I will never forget that cup of coffee.  I've had coffee from Dunkin Donuts since but it was never as serendipitous as the Turnpike Dunkins.   A few years ago they started selling the coffee beans at the grocery store and everyone was hyping how good it was.  It wasn't that good. 

Which leads me to the Ramones in Piersons Building Center.   I've on occasion purchased a latte or mocha but in the nearly 3 years working there I've never purchased a regular coffee from Ramones. That is, until yesterday.  It was medium roast.  I added my own cream & sugar but damned if it didn't take me back to that foggy morning on the turnpike.  

Kudo's Ramones. This is the second best. maybe third.. no I'll have to say definitely in the top 5 cups of coffee I've ever had.