Yuppification: complete

I've lived in Van Ness since I moved to DC in May 2006. I like it because it's quiet, calm, and mostly residential, with lots of trees and young people. It has a couple of decent restaurants (and one great one, now that Italian Pizza Kitchen has opened up; I can't find a website for them on Google, but they are on Connecticut just south of Albemarle, and everyone should go there, because they are great and if they go out of business, I will be sad), a newly-remodeled grocery store, and its own Metro stop. It's not far from downtown and, of the nearby stops on the western prong of the Red Line, it has some of the lowest rent.

The one thing it has lacked until recently is a coffee shop. I don't drink coffee, but I like coffee shops, and Torsten does drink coffee and therefore goes to coffee shops regularly. Residents of Van Ness can regularly be heard lamenting the fact that we live on the only two-mile stretch of Connecticut Avenue that does not have a Starbucks (compare this to the Dupont section of Connecticut, which is home to, I believe, four Starbucks locations). Once there was a coffee shop called Sirius, but that's been closed since before I moved in. Recently, a little place called Sips Cafe opened up, serving coffee, espresso, and pastries. But then this morning as Torsten and I were walking to the Metro, I noticed a sign on the vacant storefront where Sirius Coffee used to be. "Coming Soon: Starbucks!"

It's like a collective sigh of relief just rose from the neighbourhood. Thank god; we have been brought in from the margins of society. We are now officially part of civilization! The rest of Connecticut Avenue can't laugh at us as they cruise by with their venti mocha chip whatever-it-is that Starbucks serves anymore! Who cares if Starbucks coffee is gross and burnt? Who cares if they will most likely put the tiny new independent coffee shop out of business right away? Who cares if they waited to move into the neighbourhood until someone else tried it first? Damn it, who cares if now our rent is going to triple? We have a Starbucks, and that makes us cool.