On October 5th, in celebration of the sixteenth anniversary of Gilmore Girls' first episode and in anticipation of the Netflix four episode revival of the show in November, 250 small coffee shops across America dropped their names and adopted Luke's.
In the grand scheme of things, 250 isn't a lot of shops. Fortunately enough for me, the coffee shop here in Colorado Springs that I practically live at, Kawa Coffee (2427 N Union Blvd), was one of those 250 shops. Kawa is a bit hidden, so when the owner brought up participating in the event, I begged her to do it (even though, at the point she told me about it, she had already pretty much made up her mind). For some reason I thought that there wasn't going to be a ton of people there, maybe a few more than the usual crowd, but I was definitely wrong.
On Wednesday morning, around 9:00am, I turned into the "secret" parking lot for Kawa and saw a line that went way beyond the front door and a couple of stores down; a sight never seen by any frequent Kawa-goer (or employee, for that matter). As usual, I went in through the secret entrance (which is really just a second door, but secret makes me sound hip and "in the know") only to discover that the once tiny, relaxing coffee shop that I know and love was packed with a different type of life. Every seat was taken and voices filled any and every void in the room. Our coffee shop that usually has 15 people sitting in the shop at a time, reading, working on homework, or having intimate conversations, was now filled with new-ish mothers that were probably fans when the show first aired in 2000, their youngsters, adults meeting with friends, and a few college students such as my friends and I.
If I ever had to stand in line to order at Kawa, it was at the most, one person deep. On this day, October 5th, 2016, my fellow Kawa-ers and I had to wait 20 minutes to reach the register. This situation was no fault of the employees. There were just so many people demanding food and drinks and not enough room for more hands. Props to all of the employees. They're also my friends, so in a way, I was pretty proud, watching them bustle around with their Netflix-provided "Luke's" hats holding in the sweat, while still managing to maintain the friendly and genuine smiles that I see every day.
Instead of just announcing the event and giving Luke's coffee sleeves, the people of Netflix provided everything to bring the Stars Hollow aesthetic to life in these small shops. They provided each shop with a replica of the infamous "Luke's" coffee mug sign to hang outside to make sure the world knew that they had been "Gilmored."
Once you made it into the shop, right there, staring you in the face hung the sign that made every teenager shiver: the no cellphone sign. Of course the sign was ignored, especially because those who recognized it ironically whipped out their phones and took a picture of it. If only Luke could see us now. Every barista behind the counter was dressed in "uniform," which consisted of a flannel shirt with a backwards baseball cap. Netflix even gave the shop aprons with the logo on the front.
We can't forget about the coffee. Kawa's coffee is always excellent (speaking as a completely objective, third party observer), but on this day, it was even better. I didn't think it was possible, but the bright blue "Luke's" coffee sleeves and the Lorelai quote on the cup managed to push it above and beyond. For the first 250 people, the coffee tasted like "Luke's Brew" and freedom..because it was free and they called the coffee "Luke's Brew."
On October 5th, 2016, everyone (or at the least the people that went to one of the 250 coffee shops) got to be a Gilmore girl for the day...whether you liked it or not. I mean, it could be worse; you could be Kirk.
