thewashingtonpost.
friday,april3,2020eZ12
Casual Dining
BY TIM CARMANO
pened in early January, s weet science Coffee
is down to a single worker: owner sandra
Wolter, who has the entire 1,100-square-foot
steampunk space all to herself. It’s just
Wolter and her empty wooden tables; Wolter and her
wall mural of a coffee plant, lifted from one of her old
textbooks; Wolter and her slow bar, where a variety
of spotless brewing devices sit idle. The coronavirus
is trying to pull the plug on her coffee shop before it’s
even had a life.
To try to survive the pandemic and its crushing
blows on all sectors of the hospitality industry,
including coffee shops, Wolter has already cut back
the store’s hours and laid off the last of her
eight-person staff. she recently pulled several all-
nighters to add a shopping cart to sweet science’s
website, which now allows customers to order
anything on the menu for takeaway or even curbside
pickup outside the shop at 35 n st. ne in the noMa
neighborhood. Better yet, customers can schedule a
pickup time, so their coffee is still steaming and hot
on first sip.
“I had never really set it up [before] because I
always felt bad that, by the time someone picks up,
the coffee’s f lat and the latte is half-cold,” s aid Wolter,
a native of Germany whose introduction to the coffee
business came via her family’s c afe and roastery back
in the home country.
Coffee shop owners are going to great lengths to
keep Washington caffeinated at a time when their
sales are plummeting and the risks of spreading the
coronavirus are rising. Wolter has transitioned to a
one-woman operation, hoping she can keep up with
orders without losing her sanity or losing the proper
temperature on her drinks. other proprietors have
pivoted, too: Peregrine espresso, with three shops in
the D.C. area, and the Wydown, with two, have
moved to online ordering systems with no-contact
pickup options, too (in which employees will leave
drinks on a counter for you to grab). Peregrine (660
Pennsylvania Ave. se; 1718 14 th st. nW; and 1309
Fifth st. ne at Union Market) uses the Joe Coffee
app; the Wydown (1924 14 th st. nW and 600 -B H st.
ne) and sweet science rely on square.
Zeke’s Coffee has closed its downtown location
but still sells beans and drinks from a table outside
its shop at 2300 Rhode Island Ave. ne. owner John
Kepner is working to update his website to include
online drink orders, but for now, you can call ahead
see coffee on 13Get your
ca≠eine,
keep your
distance
Coffee shops have morphed into
carryouts with apps to preordercoffee drinks to go at Sweet Science coffee. Laura Chase de formigny for the Washington Post