Brody baristas brew up coffee with a splash of song

Your coffee order is music to Ryan Botwinik’s ears. No, seriously — the Daily Grind’s newest barista is largely the reason the Brody Learning Commons Café’s employees have taken to singing their customers’ coffee orders this semester.

Hopkins students aren’t complaining, either.

“When I’m drowning in homework late at night, their silly songs keep me in check,” junior Alexandra Brown said.

The baristas are glad to be shaking things up a bit in Brody.

“I think singing while working is a tradition that dates back to prehistoric times. In every restaurant I’ve ever worked in, all of the employees have sung their customer’s orders. It makes the day go by faster, relieves stress and it’s fun,” Botwinik, who had worked at the Daily Grind’s first coffeehouse in Fells’ Point before coming on board at the café’s location on the Homewood Campus this October, said.

“I like to sing SAMOSAAAAAS after I put them on the counter best,” he said.

It should come as no surprise that Botwinik has musical experience, too: He was once the vocalist of the punk band Mail Order Brides.

Botwinik left his original position at the Daily Grind in order to work in a Baltimore homeless shelter as a substance abuse counselor. When he got frustrated with the bureaucracy surrounding the position, he decided to go back to work for his former Daily Grind boss while studying to become a licensed barber.

“I really like my co-workers,” he said. “I have so much fun in this environment where I can be my insane self.”

Barista Ben Starr has worked at the Daily Grind since August and is a fan of the social environment at the café.

“Everyone’s studying and getting drinks here all the time. I feel like I know the majority of the student body since I’ve started working here,” Starr said. “I live in Hampden and recognize students as I walk to and from work each day.”

Starr graduated with a music degree from Swarthmore College in 2012. While at Swarthmore, he performed with Sixteen Feet, the college’s all-male a cappella group.

He has since worked as the choir director and organizer at the Trinity United Church of Christ in Carroll County. Don’t expect to see him at any Hopkins a cappella concerts though: Starr is trying to draw a line between his work and campus life.

Joshua Hunt, another barista, admits he started singing because of his co-workers.

“I always sing because Ben and Ryan will make up a song, and it gets into your head! I never know what we’re going to sing next: one night we went through old, grunge Nirvana songs, one night we sang only Elvis, the next, Bobby Womack’s ‘110th Street,’” he said.

Hunt and Starr often sing their own version of the song, “Don’t Drop that Thun Thun,” and play music in the back stock room to get pumped up for work.

Though Hunt has sung in his church choir, unlike Botwinik and Starr, he has never professionally pursued music. He has worked at the Daily Grind since it opened in Brody and previously worked at Café Q. Though he thinks his new job is just as fun as his last on Q-level, Hunt likes that the baristas can sing and be loud in the spacious digs in Brody.

Hunt would like to wish all Hopkins students best of luck on final exams on behalf of all of the baristas.

“If I have a tired face this week. . .just know it’s because you all are drinking too much coffee!” he said.