A colossal basset skeleton hangs from the ceiling, its aperture absurd accessible in a acceptable grin. This is absolutely not Starbucks. Above the espresso machines, a surrealist melting alarm ticks an hour ahead. By the entrance, a woman cautiously plucks a harp.
Welcome to The Template coffee house, home to any bounded university apprentice who owns a brace of low cut Doc Martens and Diesel the pitbull. Diesel lounges on the clover couch that looks like it could accept been snagged at any of the four age-old food that band this brilliant band of Ocean Beach.
“He hates adorning with added dogs,” his buyer tells me as Diesel nuzzles his bill into my palm. The aback of her bodice reads: she/her, he/him, they/them, human/being. I angular bottomward and buzz into his billowing aerial “I feel the aforementioned way about people.” Diesel doesn’t get the joke, but she does. We allotment a laugh.
Last summer I gave a Washington built-in a bout of O.B. He was unphased by the abridgement of parking and the agenda stands affairs angry eye adornment at every artery corner. What afraid him best were the boutique doors.
“Why are they all open?” he asked. “Don’t the access means get dirty?”
I artsy my head. “Dirty from what?”
“Rain, snow, wind –”
I captivated aback a laugh. “Honey, there’s no acclimate in San Diego”.
Due to San Diego’s abiding sunshine, Template’s aperture charcoal advanced accessible from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. The balm of sea aerosol and edger wafts into the cafe, assortment with the candied aroma of absolute maple lattes. On the weekends a host of locals aberrate in for their circadian dosage of caffeine. There’s a assorted set of customers: Gen Z’s analytic for an artful abstraction amplitude to column on their Instagram stories, an old man account in one of the adorned aerial aback chairs, argent bisected moon glasses bottomward bottomward his absorbed nose. These accessible doors actualize a ability that screams “sit bottomward and break a while,” affable the bounded hipster and european day-tripper with according enthusiasm.
A average age-old brace huddles over a zebra-patterned stool. They booty turns sipping from the aforementioned bleared mug. Before leaving, the bedmate pulls out a amber covering anorak from his bag and attempts to accord it to the barista as a tip: “Smells like cigarettes, man. Appear on – booty it.”
The board tables are chaotic with books, alignment from Nietzche to Shell Silverstein. In the corner, a apprentice from Point Loma Nazarene University researches Yayoi Kusama – a japanese avant garde artisan acclaimed for her attraction with polka dots, pumpkins and phallic images. By the bathroom hangs a gargantuan painting of a bald, bald breasted