I hadn't mentioned this previously because their site wasn't up, but there's a coffee roaster in Gainesville now: Sweetwater Organic Coffee Company. I've bought a few pounds of coffee from them, and it's seriously the best coffee I've ever had. It makes me wish I could afford a really nice espresso machine so I could produce porn.
Eventually they plan on opening a sort of coffee house, which should be pretty cool.
Yeah, sorry for the lack of updates recently. There hasn't been much interesting news.
I went to Gator's Dockside with Alex last night for dinner. When the waitress first came to our table, I asked for a Guinness and Alex ordered a martini. The waitress asked for our IDs, which I'm used to. She checked Alex's and seemed to approve. Then she looked at mine, spending at least a minute checking all the dates, making sure the hologram was there, and so on. When she was finished, she gave me this look which said, "You obviously aren't 21. Where'd you get this ID? How dare you come here?"
As she walked off, presumably to get our drinks, she continued to look at me in disbelief. A few minutes later, a manager type arrived at our table with a device to scan our IDs. He was generally nice about it and when he looked at my ID, his demeanor changed. Unfortunately the magnetic stripe on my ID, like that of most cards in my wallet, is damaged and doesn't always scan. He tried four or five times before giving up, then walked off to show my ID to his manager (who happened to be about 10 feet away). The big shot guy seemed to approve, so my ID was returned to me.
Eventually the waitress came back with our drinks. She made an attempt to apologize, claiming the ATF had been checking in on them recently. The whole thing was a little hard to believe, but I can understand a person wanting to cover his or her ass.
A bit later the food arrived. The guy just dropped the plates in the middle of the table, without asking which order was whose. Thanks, bud.
This is probably the worst experience I've had at a restaurant. There's a way to avoid embarassing your customers - like taking the IDs up to the bar. And once you verify the IDs, perhaps a free round of drinks for the mistake? All things considered, I won't be returning to Gator's Dockside.