Coffee, Punk, and the Spaces Where We Belong

☕📰 03.15.25 The Saturday Rundown

At the heart of this week’s Coffee with Steve posts is a core idea: business, real estate, personal growth, and even economic theory all intersect in how we build, sustain, and reimagine community. Whether through coffee shops, housing, finance, or personal reflection, the work isn’t just about success—it’s about making thoughtful, intentional choices that shape the world we want to live in.

In this Saturday Rundown, we’re pulling Creating a Scene from the archives while we wait for the (hopefully) three-day-a-week relaunch of Wicked Moxie. And let me tell you—we’ve got a lineup planned that’s worth the wait. Plus, if you caught Friday’s Footnote, you know I teased a Wicked Moxie surprise. Well, here’s an exclusive reveal just for Saturday Rundown readers: we’re bringing back the Coffee with Steve Podcast¹.

Whether it’s a café transforming into a cultural hub, housing prices determining who gets to put down roots, or the spaces—physical and digital—where ideas collide, one question keeps surfacing:

👉 Are we actively building community, or just hoping it happens around us?

💭 This Week’s Big Ask:

In The Teller of Small Fortunes, Tao begins her journey alone—by choice. She carries the weight of her past, preferring solitude, yet slowly and unexpectedly, a community forms around her.

It’s a fascinating reversal of the usual storytelling “rule” that characters shouldn’t be left alone for too long. But here, the quiet of Tao’s solitude makes the emergence of connection even more profound.

👉 Have you ever found yourself drawn into an unexpected community—one you didn’t seek, but one that found you anyway?

Hit "Message Steve" and tell me about it.

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PULLING FROM THE WICKED MOXIE ARCHIVE

Under Ben Cole’s leadership, Breakaway Cafe has become a beacon of community, creativity, and collaboration, proving that a business can thrive while lifting up the people around it. From shop’s origins as Flight Coffee to its evolution into Breakaway, the café has always been about more than just caffeine; it’s about fostering connection, rejecting toxic industry norms, and redefining what it means to run a people-first business. Whether it’s supporting local artists, trading with neighbors, or finding new ways to keep live music alive, Ben’s philosophy is simple: real success comes from building something bigger than yourself.

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#GratiTuesday:

What's Your Why?

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🎧 Make It Punk | A Playlist by Coffee with Steve

This is the kind of playlist that feels like an all-night dive bar hangout, a basement show packed with sweaty bodies, where you show up alone but leave with a crew.

High-energy, but not mindless; fast-paced but with heart. This playlist is about identity, belonging, and a collective fuck-you to conformity.

👉 Is belonging something we stumble into or something we create?

A few of the songs were pulled from the film Out of Bounds—think Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles’ Anthony Michael Hall trying to break out of his loveable, sweet, nerdy typecast. Yeah, the film is pretty bad, not even a cult classic. It wants to be a gritty crime thriller, but deep down, it’s a DIY underdog film—messy, awkward, and trying really hard to be cool.

That’s punk in itself. It’s not perfection but energy, defiance. Belonging. The kind of mix you could throw on at a party, a protest, or a road trip, and someone—maybe everyone—would find their anthem in that community.

So now, I want to hear from you:

💬 What’s a song that feels deeply intentional to you? Hit "Message Steve" and let me know.

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Subscribe to the full Coffee with Steve experience here. Or don’t. It’s your inbox—you decide. Pick what you want, skip what you don’t, and keep me around as much (or as little) as you like. I promise, we’ll still be friends.

1. You can listen to the currently only two episodes of Coffee With Sreve here: