PUBLIC LISTENING: CAPITAL ONE CAFÉ

SIPPING AND BANKING

Over the past twenty years, corporate restaurant design has gotten more and more austere. McDonald’s wants to make its chain locations “modern, sustainable, and welcoming,” which in practice means incorporating into its design the kind of metal grates that wouldn’t be out of place at a contemporary art museum in Brussels. Wendy’s talks about “restaurant design for the digital age.” Their new stores have imposing corners and dead-eyed wood paneling. Starbucks has long felt like the lobby of a middling business-class hotel. If the places people go to get their food and coffee are starting to resemble the placeless feel of a bank, it only makes sense that a bank would open up a coffee shop.

Enter the Capital One Café. In an attempt, I guess, to further the brand’s footprint and provide one of those elusive “third places” that people always seem to be talking about, the bank has been opening coffee shops around the country. Over 50 locations have popped up in less than three years. One thing that I read about the café—the l'accent aigu is Capital One’s choice—took the space to task for looking like a bank. I mean, what else is it going to look like? 

2:32: Natasha Bedingfield "These Words"

It was a Thursday afternoon in Union Square and I was ready to listen to some music inside of a coffee shop inside of a bank. Or is the bank inside of the coffee shop? Capital One cardholders get 50 percent off of all beverages, which was unfortunate timing for me, because I recently cancelled my card. I gripped that sign-up bonus and I bounced! After walking the length of the room, I ordered a small coffee with milk. I’m not sure why, but the Capital One Café employee thought I said that I wanted my coffee with vanilla flavoring. I didn’t correct them. Maybe this is something that they do here. I’m trying to get the proper Capital One Café experience. I waited for my coffee. To the right of me was a rack of ATMs. Concrete steps lead to more seating, a couple of private reading areas that Capital One refers to as “book nooks,” and an actual bank. The coffee shop was packed. Walking to a seating area to the side of the entrance, there was a single free space. 

2:35: Cheryl “Call My Name”

The music, as is fairly typical at these places, was quiet. I had to strain to listen over stranger’s conversations. It’s hard to understate just how bland the design of the Café is. It’s the final boss of refinement culture. Though the alcove I sat in was swaddled in wood and tile, a lot of the ceilings surrounding it were unfinished, with visible concrete. It made me feel like I was on the soundstage of a TV show, a morning show in B-market. Though it has 65 million views on YouTube, I had never heard “Call My Name” before. It’s YOLO dance pop perfect for shuffling hamsters. 

2:39: Faith Hill “Breathe”

The wall on the other side of the room had a cluster of paintings; beside me were a few tiers of shelving, each one with framed images of people, I’m not sure who, maybe Capital One employees, in various desert-like settings. The last time I was in Arizona, I was playing a show opening up for Andrew W.K. in the parking lot of a hotel.    

2:43: NYSYNC “Bye Bye Bye”

The older woman sitting next to me clearly noticed that I was taking notes on my cell phone. She made a comment to no one in particular about how she thought the Café was “good for people watching.” She glanced at my screen every ten seconds or so. There is obviously something embarrassing about sitting alone in a coffee shop created by a bank and trying to write about the barely audible music that is playing over the speakers. That doesn’t get any easier when the person next to you keeps looking at your phone and trying to figure out if you are writing about them. I kept moving between my notes app and my email app, where I flipped through the many press releases I receive on an almost constant basis throughout the day. 

2:46: Matchbox Twenty “Bent”

My time working as both a contemporary art writer and a music writer has made my inbox psychotic. I could easily unsubscribe to the majority of these mailing lists and press blasts, but I rarely do. I remember the avalanche of emails I got for years after covering the Warped Tour once in 2013. It’s embarrassing to say, but I love information. 

2:50: The Corrs “Summer Sunshine”

They serve Peet’s coffee at the Café. It’s a West Coast chain that has been kicking since the 1960s. My coffee was so doused in vanilla flavoring that it was hard to finish. 

2:53: Rob Thomas “Lonely No More”

Looking for clarity about Capital One Café’s musical policy, I found a brief from a nebulous creative agency called The Other Side Of The Brain that detailed their work programming music for not just the Café area, but also other locations within the location. In the ATM vestibule, they created a “custom, original, and exclusive soundscape in stereo, with beautiful sounding acoustic instruments, as well as high-end quality recorded sounds of nature and electro-ambient soundscapes.” I didn’t pick up on any of that shit! It was hard enough for my ears to squint and make out the second Rob Thomas song played within a half-hour period. 

2:57: Janet Jackson “Someone to Call My Lover”

Here is a song that has recently had a resurgence on TikTok. For whatever that’s worth. Personally, I’m more interested in the TikTok account of Morgan Roos, a Denver woman best known for multi-part, podcast-length verbal recaps of her weekends, which feature a lot of partying and usually at least one appearance at a dubstep rave. Her friends include “B-Dawg,” “D-Dawg,” and “Mr. Don’t Ask.” She is in her late 20s and until recently lived with her mother, who kicked her out of their shared apartment last week.   

3:01: Yael Naiim “New Soul”

It would be hard to say that the music at the Capital One Café is very interesting. But would it be better if it were? Is that what you people want, “cool” music at your bank? I treat the Rob Thomas like a tidal wave, crashing on my dome and drowning my thoughts.