Think about this the next time you’re having your morning coffee: How much better would your AM be if the coffee you’re drinking had been lovingly been prepared by a barista wearing nothing but a bikini, a thong, or a couple of stickers up top and some booty shorts down below? Would you be pleased? Would you pay extra? Or would you be outraged? Because how are you going to explain this dude wearing nothing but a pair of briefs or a woman in tanga bottoms while making drinks to your delicate child?
This is precisely the problem that a chain of bikini coffee shops — Bikini Beans Espresso, which has stores in Arizona and Washington state — is facing. While the coffee shops are busy and brimming with 5-star reviews on Yelp, parents have taken issue with the fact that the stores are selling sex in “broad daylight” and near schools, where children can see the barely-clothed workers leaning out the stores’ windows, smoking, and even emptying the trash in their unmentionables.
From Fox:
Kimberly Curry, a mother of four young children from the Spokane, Wash.-area, led a campaign with dozens of local moms to start a ballot initiative that would have required the topless baristas to keep their nipples concealed, and a small portion of their breasts covered, if they were within public view.
Unsurprisingly, Curry’s campaign failed, leading her to completely give up on the political parties in her area because they wouldn’t “think of the children” when making decisions about what adults can and can’t do in a place of business:
“Conversatives were against it [the ballot initiative] because they didn’t want any restrictions placed on business owners. Liberals were upset because they didn’t want any restrictions on womens’ bodies,” said Curry. “To be honest, the whole thing really turned me away from both parties. It was just a matter of human decency.”
It’s not clear exactly why this is an issue of “human decency,” though; nor why Curry and her cohorts believed that it was up to the government to legislate what people should and shouldn’t wear rather than explaining to her kids that, hey, sometimes people go to work in bikinis to sell coffee, and yeah, that’s weird, but it’s just the world we live in and, to be honest, “Most of these people are probably having a lot of fun and their lack of clothing doesn’t mean anything about them as people. Do you want ice cream?”
The store’s founder, Ben Lyles, told Fox that the outrage is misguided because the store isn’t just about women in bikinis. “It’s empowering for our baristas to wear a bikini, feel comfortable in their own skin, embrace that, and have a choice to do something they enjoy and love,” he said. And people who aren’t down with that? They may just want to go elsewhere. But, according to at least one barista who works at the shop, the bare look doesn’t really seem to be affecting kids. She even has regulars who bring their whole family and says she’s even offered to babysit some customers’ kids.
Looks like the stores are here to stay! And if any kids ask, just tell them that “The people making coffee in bras are planning to hit the beach later.” If these are real dilemmas, is parenting really as tough as people say?
