Yesterday, a new coffee shop in Mission gave drink discounts to folks in fedoras. Fedora Day, every Thursday from 2 to 6 p.m., is just one of the quirky specials at Nighthawks Coffeehouse. On other days, the colorful joint gives discounts to tattooed folks and gay patrons. Ink Day is on Wednesdays; Alternative Lifestyle Night is on Tuesdays.
Fedora Day supposedly grew out of owner Brian Koon’s habit of wearing the retro, distinguished style of hat. He wasn’t in the house when I stopped by. In fact, in the span of an hour I saw only two fedoras. One was in a painting by local artist Allison Hedgepeth. The other was atop the head of Hubert Feuerborn, a middle-aged fellow who lives near the Plaza but wanted to check out Nighthawks after reading about Fedora Day in the Pitch. He said he got his fedora after a legendary movie adventurer sported one. “Indiana Jones had one,” Feuerborn said, “so I had to have one, too.”
Teenage barista Sarah Klem, who was still wearing her Catholic school uniform, told me the hat-wearing crowd usually comes in right after school gets out. Since I didn’t show up until about 4:15, the high school hipsters were long gone. Besides Feuerborn, the only other patrons were a gaggle of mommy types having a meeting, a bald guy who would have looked good in a fedora and another dude in a ball cap reading in one of the back rooms. A few others straggled in and out while I sipped a pomegranate Italian soda.
One probably shouldn’t expect huge crowds for a promotion surrounding old-fashioned men’s hats. But the whimsical spirit of a thing like Fedora Day is part of what makes the independent coffeehouse cool. With its streaky yellow walls, local art displays, open-mic nights and menu scrawled in chalk, Nighthawks captures the coffeehouse culture that sterile Starbucks never has.
Nighthawks is located at 5815 Johnson Drive, in Mission’s adorable shopping district. The Mission Theater, which recently began holding regular rock shows, is less than a block away. The proximity should be mutually beneficial – as long as the rocker kids are savvy enough to cross the street for Nighthawks rather than settling for the coffee from a chain that’s about to open smack in the middle of the coffeehouse and the theater. But who drinks coffee from LaMar’s Donuts, anyway?
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