The MadAtoms Guide to Hipster Coffee Shops: Choke

If you’re the kind of hipster that likes to hang out at places that no one’s ever heard about, then Choke is the place for you.

Nestled incongruously on the residential street Normal between Hoover and Virgil, you don’t just stumble upon this place- you hear about it. The other day, I hung out at Choke for about an hour, and all fifteen customers knew Jeff, the owner, as well as each other.

As I waited for my coffee, I was startled by a loud blast of an air hose. I looked over to find Jeff doing god knows what to the shell of a Vespa. The thing about Choke, is that it’s barely a coffee shop. It’s actually a scooter / moped repair shop that also sells espresso.
When I ask him why combine the two, he seems genuinely surprised, as if no one’s ever asked him that.

He’s either hopped up on espresso or has a bad case of ADD. As we talk, he alternates between smoking cigarettes, fixing some gear-looking thing, riding around on a skateboard, and flirting with his girlfriend, who’s here hanging out with a friend of hers.

He’s fixed scooters and motorcycles for a long time. And he loves espresso. He feels the two are just a natural fit.
I ask him about the location. “The fact that it’s on this small, residential street… doesn’t that mean that the only people that come here are the people that already know about it?”

“Well… yeah,” he says, as if it’s a good thing. Things are cool when they’re hidden away. Besides, he likes the street, likes bombing down the hill on his skateboard.

“I’m gonna go bomb the hill,” he says, turning to his girlfriend. “Let’s go bomb the hill.”

Jeff’s girlfriend picks up a skateboard and yells to her friend, “We’re gonna go bomb the hill!”

She turns around. Jeff is already half way up the hill.