Rummage through the kitchen cabinets of many a barista, and you'll more often than not find a cup and saucer with the Gimme! Coffee logo on it. Make an Elaine Benice-like comment about whether you think an exclamation point really is necessary, and they'll wax poetic about the New York-based roaster, its artisanal, small-batch methodology, and its commitment to sustainability and local community. They'll also go on and on about the type of whimsical New York that you see in television and movies and that, they insist, exists in real life, at any one of Gimme! Coffee's half dozen coffee shops sprinkled throughout choice parts of The Empire State.

For those New Yorkers, and Californians who know not the pleasures of drinking coffee while the leaves change color before their very eyes, Broome St. General Store imports that piece of the Big Apple to Silver Lake. It's the only place in L.A., if not California, where you'll find these beans. Exclamation point.

One of shop's owners, Sophie Esteban, used to live on Broome Street in New York, near a Gimme! Coffee. She wanted to open a general store where you can collect, well, general items and knickknacks. And coffee from her favorite shop. Hence, the store name and the store's beans. The rest of Broome St. General Store is a hodgepodge of things: practical (kitchen and tableware), hard-to-find-(an impressive array of flours and meals from Bob's Red Mill), lovingly local (sweets from Valerie Confections and Cake Monkey), and indulgent (ginger syrup from Brooklyn's Morris Kitchen).

For all the great random assortment of things lining its well-organized shelves, though, the two or three people who dropped in when we did specifically asked about the coffee. Their delight in finding a local place for Gimme! Coffee was only punctuated by the fact that after they finished their cups of joe on the store's generous, wood-paneled patio, they could buy a bag or two to take home. Give them coffee, indeed.

Expect to see these stickers floating around LA.; Credit: T. Nguyen

Expect to see these stickers floating around LA.; Credit: T. Nguyen

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