Slörm Update - Part 1: Regulars

Our favorite coffee bar Sloerm – you might recall our long journey to find the best one – is by now an important part of our lives in Berlin. Every morning at 8 am – Stefan and Michele have just opened their bar we get our Latte in our cups. Every day we start with a nice chat and then we go to work.

However at the beginning of the year something had changed. When I entered the Sloerm, I could not grasp it right away what it was. My brain gave me the signal that the music had changed classic instead of Hip-Hop and the face behind the bar was different. Normally this face would sit in a chair and look into a laptop or you see it standing outside smoking. It was `Uncle Uwe` a very friendly regular visitor who just had returned from a long journey shortly before X-mas.

For the first time we talked as I gave him my order. I asked him about his journey and why he was working here. I found out that he was on a bike tour along the pilgrim route to Santiago in Spain. And he gave Stefan and Michele as a X-mas present a 2 weeks’ vacation -  their first vacation in five years. And while they were on vacation he would take care of the bar.  

I really liked this guy. We talked every day and found out that Uwe was astonished how exhausting the job of a barista was. At 7 am you need to go shopping, then open the bar from 8am – 8 pm and then you need to finish the administrative work including accounting. Moreover, he told me that he writes on a concept for a TV documentary about an expedition through Tajikistan. I volunteered to be part of the expedition – no clue if that is more or less stressful than a job as a barista.