By Teagan Durkin || Contributing Writer
You know them. If you don’t, everyone from your suitemates to the person who keeps burning ramen at 2:00 AM knows them. The logos, one a grimacing coffee cup with caterpillar eyebrows on a bright orange background, the other an elegant cursive font over maroon, have accompanied F&M students through frantic study sessions and final reviews, even serving as a necessary treat for just making it through the day.
Mean Cup, open from 7 AM to 4 PM every day of the week, is as much an institution at F&M as any official ceremony or tradition. The lack of an ‘About Me’ page on their website leaves one wondering: just how long has Mean Cup been serving coffee and abuse? Was it established in 2014? Did the Big Bang herald its creation? Is the establishment date readily available in the shop itself if one just momentarily stops inhaling their coffee to look around?
We may never know.
Beiler’s Doughnuts, one store away from Mean Cup, leaves no such mystery. Originally established thirty years ago in Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia, PA, Beiler’s opened its store on Harrisburg Avenue with the intent to provide a variety of Amish-style donuts.
The close proximity of Mean Cup and Beiler’s leads one to wonder. . .would they pair well? Is it sacrilege to mix coffee from Mean Cup with an old-fashioned glazed donut from Beiler’s? As both stores provide pastries and caffeinated products, would this result in a turf war over who can profit off of F&M’s sugar-dependent masses?
It was necessary to test this. Forgoing my own safety, I volunteered to conduct this perilous experiment one Tuesday morning. Luckily, no one smacked the Mean Cup coffee out of my hands when I stepped into Beiler’s. I safely purchased an old-fashioned and a mocha creme donut, and returned to campus.
The pairing was perfect, with the sweetness of Beiler’s donuts enhanced by the heady acidity of Mean Cup’s coffee. Dunking the old-fashioned into the coffee allows one to experience the two staples of an undergraduate’s diet: boiling caffeine and saccharine sweet sugar.
So go. Treat yourself today. If you can’t afford it, bully your friends into treating you! Your professors! Sweet talk the cashier!
Don’t actually do the last one. You aren’t the first to try to break down their walls of professional politeness, and any attempts might result in an immediate ban.
Any leftovers from Beiler’s can be fed to Theater majors. They are notoriously always hungry due to poor time management and rehearsal schedules. However, do not give them any Mean Cup. They are similarly constantly over-caffeinated, and will start singing Hamilton if given coffee.
Teagan Durkin is a Contributing Writer for The College Reporter. Her email is tdurkin@fandm.edu.