Which Princeton coffee shop would make a man in a suit sprint just to snag a seat?
Nestled between Nassau and Chambers Streets is a narrow, white-walled coffee shop named Sakrid Coffee Roasters. Despite its size, Sakrid is a favorite work and catch-up spot among students and townies, due to its minimalist interior and floor-to-ceiling views of Rockefeller College and Nassau Christian Center. Looking to better understand what makes this unassuming corner coffee shop such a bustling place, I stopped by for 42 minutes. This is what I saw.
1:22 p.m.
When I arrived on a partly sunny afternoon, 17 people were already in Sakrid. In front of me, three people sat on a long, low windowsill waiting for their drinks. The rest hunched over laptops at wooden high-top tables. Despite the number of people in the cafe, the room was hushed, interrupted only by the occasional low murmur. The rhythmic clacks of the customers’ computers carried me to the counter with two baristas. Honoring the incredibly rare warm and sunny day, I ordered an apricot lemonade and a cinnamon croissant donut.
1:23 p.m.
Waiting for my order, I took the time to survey the shop. While undoubtedly much smaller than Princeton’s other coffee staple, Small World, Sakrid’s tasteful design, highlighted by the amber afternoon light, was a sharp contrast to the often thunderous atmosphere of Small World.
1:24 p.m.
Receiving my drink and pastry almost instantly, I found a rare open spot in a low metal chair beside the door. Taking a sip, I found the apricot lemonade blissfully refreshing. A fair amount of pulp mitigated some of the sweetness, creating an aromatic balance.
1:26 p.m.
Enjoying the last few sips of my lemonade, a pair of friends sat at an empty table beside me. One friend said she would do her engineering homework while they talked. Turning back to my table, I tasted the cinnamon croissant donut. The donut itself was picture-perfect, with a heaping of cinnamon sugar dusted over the top. Yet it was a little chewier than expected and would most likely taste better warmed up. If only they’d offered.
1:29 p.m.
As I sat, I overheard another student order the cinnamon croissant donut. I shook my head as the cronut fooled its next victim. In the background, a song from the French band La Femme played, filling the room with glittering synths and angular guitar.
1:30 p.m.
As I worked, French music pleasantly hummed in the background to match the aesthetic of the cafe and its patrons, who were fashionably dressed for the transition from winter to spring. While the cold weather hasn’t quite released its grip on New Jersey, on a clement day like today, the change in seasons was visible through the touch of spring in people’s outfits. Denim jackets, summer dresses with sweaters, colorful scarves, and vibrant colors abounded. Suddenly, one of the baristas loudly called out “Cold Brew!” breaking the cafe’s study-induced silence.
1:32 p.m.
Hearing the ring of the door opening, I turned to see a man enter the shop with only his laptop in tow. At this point, only two chairs were left in the packed cafe, and an unlucky line of two waited ahead of him. After ordering, the man took one final look around the cafe before leaving seatless.
1:33 p.m.
Sakrid’s perpetual cycle of customers continued as a mailman walked in with a bundle of letters, a Johns Hopkins magazine peeking out from under his arm. He delivered his letters to the counter before walking out in less than a minute, on his way to provide this treacherous mail to an anonymous person.
1:35 p.m.
The cafe’s silence was abruptly broken by two vaguely fratty male students, one dressed in a Princeton-themed rugby shirt and boots that thumped loudly on the wooden floor. I overheard one of the guys tell a female student, “The nepoing is going to go crazy.” He laughed before smirking. While I did not hear the beginning of the conversation, I could hear him say “nepo” again as he exited the cafe, leaving me to assume back-room deals were being made.
1:37 PM
As I took a minute to listen to some of the drink orders being announced, a young woman beside me whipped out her phone to take a picture of her bright green matcha. For contrast, I watched an older man carrying a large ceramic mug of coffee and a plate with a cronut sit at the last high-top seat facing the windows. He had no computer. Instead, he watched the street below and the stone church across from the cafe.
1:47 p.m.
As I worked, a student sitting next to the older man left, creating a rare open seat. A middle-aged lady with a stylish bob swiftly claimed the vacant seat. As soon as she settled, she began typing furiously on her phone.
1:54 p.m.
Curious if the cafe remained packed, I looked outside at the two wooden tables outside the store. Both were occupied by two friends who basked in the sun as they sipped espresso cups. Looking back towards the counter, I noticed a professional-looking, middle-aged man armed with only a laptop sleeve, a to-go coffee in hand, and a fresh haircut. He looked intently across the small room. Unsurprisingly, there were no seats, leaving him to make his way out the front door.
1:57 p.m.
Less than five minutes later, I noticed a young man collect his computer and papers and leave the shop. In a flash, the professional man from before reappeared, hurrying back through the door to grab the seat. I don’t believe there is a better endorsement of Sakrid than what I saw: a grown man sprinting for a free seat in the shop.
2:02 p.m.
As I prepared to leave, the shop was relatively quiet. Beside me, an older couple talked at a counter as they looked out at the church next door. While students still crowded the narrow wooden tables lining the shop, the crowd now represented a much more diverse range of ages, with students stopping by after class, twenty-somethings taking a work break, friends chatting while pretending to work, and even professionals preparing for meetings.
While there were quieter moments, the crowd at Sakrid never noticeably thinned out, instead inundated by a revolving stream of people grabbing coffees, looking for seats, and settling down. Yet while Sakrid undoubtedly attracts fashionable people looking for an aesthetic spot to study that matches their meticulously curated outfit, it is also a perfect complement to the homey but often chaotic Small World. Instead of loudly chattering students and armies of children fueled by hot cocoa, Sakrid is much more laid back — a perfect place for someone who needs to get in that intense study sesh but wants to study in a coffee shop.
Meredith Sneed is a contributing writer for The Prospect from Savannah, Ga. She can be reached at ms1290[at]princeton.edu.
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