Joe wishes these toasts could be his

Milstein Peet’s Coffee is better than any of the three Joe Coffees, and you can’t change EIC Youngweon Lee’s mind. Joe wishes he could be Peet. In his dreams!

Joe Coffee has a monopoly on Columbia’s campus, but to the west of Broadway, on Barnard’s campus, a newcomer, Peet’s Coffee, is a force to be reckoned with. Sure, Peet spells his name weirdly (when I first saw it spelled out I thought it was a typo for Pete) but he has better, cheaper coffee than Joe and also has avocado toast (as well as peanut butter toast, tomato toast, and strawberry banana toast) made on the spot for only $5. Joe, with his $8 pre-made sandwiches wrapped in plastic (bad for the environment!) could never.

Peet has also stationed himself in a shiny new building that makes NoCo look like a pile of rubble. Okay, maybe not actually, but NoCo Joe’s seating area is always so crowded and hectic, whereas you can grab a coffee from Milstein Peet and go to a wide variety of seating areas all over Milstein. Pulitzer Joe isn’t much better than NoCo Joe (or slightly worse, depending on who you ask) and Dodge Joe is just ugly. Sorry, Dodge Joe.

If you recall my thorough analysis of the three Joes, you might know that I don’t actually like Joe’s coffee because of its sourness. What happened to the days when coffee was nice and bitter? Anyway, I was bracing myself for another onslaught of sourness attacking my taste buds this morning but was pleasantly surprised by my Peet’s latte. Its soft, full bitterness enveloping my soul was just what I needed this cold autumn morning. Joe’s sour beans could never. They’re sour from jealousy.

Joe also offers coffee in only two sizes, whereas Peet has three. If you don’t want a small or a large, you can get a medium. Revolutionary. I think Peet’s coffee is also slightly cheaper than Joe’s, but I got a hot latte today, so Peet might also charge a whole dollar extra for ice and I might just not know about it.

There are exactly two aspects in which Joe is better than Peet, though: Peet isn’t open on the weekends, and doesn’t take American Express. I support Peet wholeheartedly nonetheless because he’s just a small business in the corner of Milstein, subverting the evil Joenopoly going on across Broadway. Joe, green from jealousy, might try to take over Peet, as it did Up, but we cannot let this happen. We must protect Peet at all costs.

avo toast via Youngweon Lee