Those who know me know that I can usually be found at Lemonjello’s (LJ’s for short and for the reason that I’m still unsure of the socially acceptable pronunciation of the name). I spend far more of my waking hours at LJ’s than I do at home; often, on days when my first class is at 1 p.m., I’m camped out in LJ’s from about 6:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. I’m most productive there and also most caffeinated there. I almost never leave without having consumed two cups of coffee. There are a lot of great reasons that I go to LJ’s, but the productivity part is what keeps me coming back so early in the morning (even though it can feel like quite the trek from my house first thing in the morning!) and staying for so long.
Here’s my list of reasons why I love LJ’s:
- LJ’s has the perfect amount of white noise to allow me to get my work done well without getting distracted by conversations around me.
- Refills on coffee are only 50 cents. You can get three cups of coffee for less than $3. Not that I would know.
- LJ’s has punch cards (a punch per cup of coffee, and after your 10th punch you get a cup for free). These are great for multiple reasons, one of which is that you can get all your punches from plain cups of coffee and use your free cup on a large, expensive latte if you so choose. Another is that on Tuesdays they give you double punches, so you can fill up a punch card pretty quickly if you choose to go to LJ’s on the right days!
- Their trademark mugs are yellow. Yellow is my favorite color. Everything tastes better out of a yellow mug.
- Their muffins. Oh my lanta. Go before about 8:30 a.m. and you’ll find muffins that are still warm from the oven. They are so good.
- Day-olds. If you get to LJ’s early enough in the morning, you can score a leftover muffin from the day before for $1. What a deal and a tasty breakfast!
- Sometimes they have Santa Lucia blend. I grew up in an Evangelical Covenant church, so this blend of coffee brings back lots of fun memories for me (Santa Lucia is a big deal for some churches like my old one, where we had an annual Santa Lucia breakfast!).
8. Free wi-fi all the time. It’s not on a time limit so it never runs out, and you don’t have to purchase anything to get the passcode. I mean, I always purchase something anyway, but it’s nice that it’s free if you’re just coming to meet a friend or something like that.
9. Lots of local products and eco-friendly methods! I’m pretty sure I heard one time that LJ’s only takes out one bag of trash per day because they put in a big effort to be sustainable!
10. Plain and simple, LJ’s has great coffee.
Where’s your favorite spot? Let me know on Twitter (@hopekathryn17), Instagram (@kathrynekrieger), or send me an email at kathryn.krieger@hope.edu. Thanks for reading!
“So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”
1 Corinthians 10:31