The Bandit

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Let me tell you the story of this photography.

It was taken this morning, on a street very close by to where I live now, downtown Bucharest. I walk on that street every day, on my way to the coworking space from where I work. It's a quiet street, with old buildings, vintage shops at the ground floor and very narrow.

By vintage I don't mean antique. I mean vintage like in the last 30 years nothing changed. There is an old-style, communist lottery shop just at the corner. A shoe repair shop with toy boots on its old display. A genuine, manual sewing machine powered clothes repair shop too.

During the last few months a few new, hipsterish businesses creeped in. A hamburger van decided to have a fixed selling point here and rented a small space. And then the same guy rented another place, just on the other side of the street, as a sitting area. That's how small everything is on this street. You can barely sit where they make the hamburgers, so you get your food and cross on the other side.

But the first hip place opened was a coffee shop. It was called "Bloom". Very small, minimalist furniture, but a fabulous coffee maker. The contrast between the device that was making coffee and the furniture (and the entire street) was shocking.

But that was only until you met the owner. A young, always dark dressed, bearded, blue eyed barista. Very silent. When he wasn't making coffee he was completely immersed into his iPhone, doing God knows what. But when he started to talk about coffee, you literally couldn't stop him. And by that time you should have also noticed the forearm long tattoo on his right arm, green and white, and probably asked him what it represents. And he probably answered, almost vexed: "a coffee flower, can't you see?".

I never met someone as passionate about the coffee as this guy. I stopped by a few times after he opened and talked. He studied in England, got the first in his group, and then decided to come back to Romania, and build the best coffee shop in Bucharest. He didn't aim for a shopping mall, nor for a more visible (and probably more expensive) location.

Instead, he camped on that narrow street, being the first contrasting guy on a place which, until him, seemed to have slowly died.

A couple of months ago, he closed Bloom.

I was sad, especially since I was seeing him around in other coffee shops.

But soon I realized he was just "revamping".

The new coffee shop is called "Bandit". It wasn't opened yet, but you can literally peek into it with this photo.

Do pay this guy a visit if you're coming to Bucharest. You'll thank me later.

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I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.

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