Chicago Coffee Spots Disclose Their Secret Lingo

By Anthony Todd in Food on Feb 12, 2013 5:00PM

Sara Travis, founder of Wormhole Coffee, prepares espresso.

Last weekend, the Sunday Review section of the New York Times took on one of the more pressing issues of our time: are baristas talking about you in code? If you're hot or annoying, the answer is yes. Ben Schott assembled a super-cute (or super hipster annoying, depending on your perspective) collection of coffee shop lingo from across America, and several independent Chicago coffee shops made the list.

From Wormhole:
"Check the Honey" - "Indicates an attractive customer in the line."
"Fresh Pot" - "A customer who flirts with the baristas."

From Caffe Streets:
"Sorority Special" - "A skim milk latte with sugar free vanilla syrup. The most common choice for prissy sorority girls (and a surprising number of burly, football fan frat-boy types."

From Asado Coffee:
"Starbuckaroo" - "A customer who asks (in vain) for a bizarre or flavored coffee concoction."

The rest of the list is pretty entertaining. Unfortunately, now we're going to be keeping our ears peeled for anything even remotely interesting during our coffeeshop visits. Every time sugar, honey or milk needs to be refilled, we may find ourselves making eyes at the very confused baristas.