Daniel was nervous. He had been reading about these coffee shops for a while now. There was this website that had a top 10 list of the best ones to go to, but they had all these acronyms he couldn’t quite make heads or tails of. “Showing” he guessed meant flashing or maybe see through? Was it just a sexy barista in a skimpy bikini like Pink Panthers or maybe more like Hooters? What was different is that was a specific Asian ethnic community that had a big local population in the Bay Area. Sort of like China town up north in San Francisco. Didn’t know they had an open body culture since a lot of Asian cultures seemed to frown on showing their bodies be it in public or private.

Daniel had finally picked one of the shops as his first foray into the “scene”. It was hard to get much information from the website where people would post “reports” others would openly discuss what they thought of the girls. Pretty crude to be honest which made him think of frat boys talking about some seedy strip club in the rough part of town. Not for me he thought, been there, done that. But there were more respectful posters who wrote that girls would great them like a good friend and if they went more frequently would sit down chat with them. That doesn’t sound like a strip club and what threw him even more off was that they were only open during the day. They even opened before 8am so folks can get an early coffee.

No alcohol here and some guys would grab one of the offered board games and spend the morning or afternoon playing and hanging out with their buddies. They also offered something called “Ca Phe Sua Da”. A quick search on Wikipedia showed it was iced milk coffee using medium to coarse ground dark roast with a small metal drip filter. After the hot water is added, the drip filter releases drops of the hot coffee slowly into a cup. Sounds interesting.

Anywayz, Daniel had picked Coffee Expresso because this place was supposed to be a sure thing and the descriptions of the girls didn’t sound sleezy or old. As he drove up to the address it was some run-down retail block with a supermarket and lots of Asian small businesses. Everything from a bakery, barber and the ever-present laundry / dry cleaning place. The parking area was actually pretty big, and he had to drive around a couple times and could not spot the shop. He had to look up the address again a go shop by shop before he saw it. It was a small one at the end of the row of shops. No big sign and tinted windows so you could see what was going on inside. There were cars parked up front, but Daniel decided to drive past and park in front of the bakery to be more discrete.

It was close to lunch time, and he could see a few guys walking in the direction of Coffee Expresso, or CN as they guys on the website called it, then pull open the door and go in. Daniel nervously locked up his car and start walking to the door. Slowing his walk, a tick so he would be just behind the young Asian yuppie that had just parked his souped-up rice rocket. You could hear some dance music as the door opened and he quickly followed the other patron into the shop.

His eyes took a second to adjust from the bright sun from outside and looked into a pretty packed space with small two-man tables lined left and right along both walls and large ones in the middle row. Large TV screens lined the walls with different sports and news channels running. The shop wasn’t new and in fact it looked just a bit less run down than the other shops in the strip mall. Daniel almost turned around to get the heck out of there, but this hot curvy Latina in a tiny red sparkly bikini and a pitcher was walking towards him so he froze. Too late to make a run for it.

With a smile she asked, “Are you guys together”? He had completely forgotten the other guy, so he shook his head in a no. While the other guy just ignored her and headed to the right to one of the free tables. Daniel was still enthralled by this cute young beauty. She could have been a coed at the local college, and she looked great in her bikini. Not skinny, though he did like them slimmer. But she had curves in all the right places and nice boobs and that typical Latina bootay that so many like. She was perfectly confident in a skimpy bikini in a crowded room full of guys.

She quickly pointed at a couple of free spots in the room and said, “grab a seat and someone will come by for your order”, so Daniel headed left and found an empty chair near the back. The hot Latina continued her walk through the place, going from table to table. Filling up empty glasses with something that looked like iced tea. She occasionally would stop to chat with some tables or just refill the glasses on other. You could see the eyes of those lucky few she decided to stop at grow wide and they always broke out in a smile as some friendly flirting was clearly going on. Other patrons would sneak lusty looks at the skimpily clad Latina as she walked by. She definitely was a looker, and many would count themselves fortunate if she decided to grant them and audience.

Now that he was safely seated at a table with a solid wall to his back, Daniel took a quick breath that he didn’t know he was holding and scanned the room. Most of the tables were full. The room consisted of a very diverse group of males from all walks of life. Some older, most younger. We’ll at least they took the rule of not allowing underage teens inside. There were groups of 2 to 4 sitting together in the larger tables. But also, guys that looked like they were on their own sharing the smaller two-seater tables. Dan was lucky that he didn’t have share a table, that would have been awkward. Some guys looked like they were co-worker taking a lunch break, others were in serious discussions, pointing at a TVs showing CNBC or another finance channel. Hopefully they were not getting too stressed out in this rocky down market. Yes, there were even two guys playing checkers in the corner. All pretty normal except for the pretty server in a teeny tiny bikini.

The shop wasn’t well lit lending to a bit shadier mood, but it got a lot of natural light that filtered through the floor to ceiling tinted windows at the entrance. It was actually funny to see the patrons trying to peek through the tint and finally giving up and reluctantly opening the door to take a peek. Daniel guessed he wasn’t the only newbie. :) Across from where he was sitting, he could see an older Asian woman behind a counter. There was a cash register and she seemed to be keeping track of who was ordering what at each of the tables. She reminded him of a stern librarian with her hair in a bun, lowered glasses on her nose as she scanned the room with something close to a scowl. She looked all business and Daniel quickly looked away so as not to lock eyes with her.