All you need is motivation and enough strength to move the coffee table away from the television or computer.
"It's like taking the coffee beans away from Starbucks," said Ralph Shayne, CEO of lending firm Oasis.
"It's been a whole lot better," said Lami Kim, 28, a cashier at Lorimer Hero and Coffee a block away from McCarren.
It's the whole idea of nipping out for a coffee to get away from the office or to have a treat and get a bit of your own time.
Thus the best approaches to helping coffee growers involve helping people move away from coffee production.
They hold their coffee cup several inches away from their seats — the start-stop of the bus means the coffee could spill at any moment.
When Eugene Kagansky, the owner of D'Espresso on the Lower East Side, decided to open another coffee bar a block away from the New York Public Library at Bryant Park, he told his designer, "Let's do a coffee bar that looks like a library, but would be more interesting".
(Italian informant: add lemon. French informant: add salt. Alcohol researchers: stay away from coffee — it's a diuretic and will make you more dehydrated).
So some savvy café-owners paper over their windows to let the less devout enjoy a cup of coffee or a sandwich away from disapproving eyes.
ChocoLatte Café, a year-old coffee shop a storefront away from Ridgewood Coins and Stamps, has cards at the door promoting a local yoga studio with student specials.
"The walls have ears here," he says, soon after we enter the coffee shop, ushering me away from the disinterested-looking patrons in search of more private surroundings.
