Cafe serves up coffee with conservative flavor (Latte-swilling liberals welcome, too, owner says)

Chicago Tribune ^ | 7/31/08 | Stacy St. Clair

[redstates4ever]

From the moment customers enter the front door, the Conservative Cafe is serving up caffeinated doctrine.

Ann Coulter books sit stacked by the fireplace, and a picture of Ronald Reagan hangs on the wall. Fox News plays on all the televisions, and stock market quotes scroll along an electronic ticker above the cash register.

Behind the counter, owner Dave Beckham smiles proudly in a khaki T-shirt that reads "Zip It, Hippie." The shirt is for sale at the Crown Point, Ind., cafe, along with ones that say "Peace through Superior Firepower."

"It's a change from the traditional liberal bastion coffeehouses," Beckham says. "No one is going to bad-mouth America in here."

[redstates4ever]

Just awesome.

Here's the web address of the coffee shop's website, and some pics from there:

http://www.conservativecafe.com/

owner Dave Beckham:

[redstates4ever]

Cafe serves up coffee with conservative flavor *lets’ hear it for the un-Starbucks PING*

[Radl]

To think this guy was once making millions kicking a soccer ball and now serving coffee. His wife must have been spending like no tomorrow.

[reagan_fanatic]

He could also be doing it because he wants to.

[Gorzaloon]

"His other options are conservative, moderate and liberal—the latter of which Beckham describes as a "Colombian decaf with no substance.""

Coffee on keyboard alert!

[redstates4ever]

Check out the downloadable menu on their website - it shows their different “strengths” of coffee, from weak decaf liberal to hard-right full caffeine. :-)

[longtermmemmory]

now if only they could go into airports and give starbucks a run for their burned coffee.

[mewzilla]

Oh, what an oasis. Please tell me one’s coming to Upstate NY :)

[DustyMoment]

It is an amazing day in America when a coffee shop that supports a political ideology gets press in the Chicago Trib.

This is likely to be the first significant vestige of the balkanization of America. Up to this point in our history, our balkanization has been limited to ethnic groups claiming geographical areas of a metropolitan area. We could live with that. But, now, we are seeing the beginnings of the political divide that has been opened up and is becoming a yawning chasm.

Geographical separation we can overcome. Political divides are more polarizing, more hurtful and tend to be more permanent. I pray to God that, in 100 years or so, people aren’t wondering what happened to the United States of America. By then, we may have divided into the United States of East America, and the United States of West America with one being for liberals and the other for conservatives.

It is heartbreaking to contemplate that this may be our future and I blame the political elites for it. They are creating this partisan political chasm and should be held accountable for it.

Re-elect NO ONE!!!

[mewzilla]

I have one word for Mr. Beckham: Franchise :)

[Northern Yankee]

My kinda place.

Let's go get a cup! ; )

[sauropod]

I’m wondering how long until this establishment is desecrated by Those That Can’t Bear Contrary Opinions.

[Prov1322]

I’ll buy the franchise rights to open up the SouthEast...! (with locations on every corner of Atlanta!)

[Dr. Sivana]

Hey, this man has the money to execute my idea. I was going to name it “The Hard Right Cafe” and there’d be different tables named after different conservatives. Of course Rush Limbaugh would be available during his show.

I’m not so sure I’d want the Colombian coffee to be the liberal stuff, even though it’s decaf. The liberal stuff would either be “Fair Trade Third World Blend decaf” (grown in rain forest regions) (Mostly Brazilian, with some Indonesian and Papua New Guinea thrown in), There is also the Terrorist Special (Indonesian Sumatra). Conservatives might try the Franco Roast.

The most conservative way to have it would be straight black with no additives, though consumerists could go with Coffeemate and artifiacial sweetener(can we get cyclamates?). Traditional minded conservatives would get white sugar/honey with whole milk or half-half.

[pgkdan]

Oh man...you gotta love this guy!!! He should franchise these all over Red State America.

[PurpleMan]

Either your business is coffee or politics. What business plan would ostracize 50% of the consumers?

Prediction:

It’ll fail miserably.

[Tainan]

Relax Dusty. Its called..."A Business Plan."


Find a market and serve it.

[Patrick1]

Rush alienates “50%” of his audience and he is doing just fine. We should not take this so seriously it is just coffee. The man is opening a niche cafe, good for him. Seems some Americans still have the balls to go out and stake their claim. Despite the whiners on Free Republic.

Now I'm going to get a cup of JFG and swing over to his site and order a coffee mug.

[ken21]

amen.

i never understood how a company known for its coffee, served such crap.

then, i read it is a marketing ploy—

coffee tastes bad,

so people buy expensive lattes and cappuccino’s

[FreeAtlanta]

He needs his wi-fi to start up on FreeRepublic :-)