One of Seattle's great institutions is the drive-thru espresso stand. Staffed by teen and twenty-something hot bods (some of which are my friends, so be nice!) these places are to Seattle what cocktail waitresses are to Vegas. For some people, it's just about getting their fix, but others come for a side of flirtatiousness with their espresso.

The formula for espresso stands is simple, requiring little overhead and opening costs. Take an abandoned lot, add a strip of pavement, a box for the barista, and voila: urban blight transformed into insta-barista. Just like grass nudging its way through pavement cracks, these booths often pop up in open corners of strip malls, where overambitious developers miscalculated the need for parking spaces. Aesthetically, they resemble the barn storage sheds on sale at Home Depot, and when you order your drink at the window, the inside looks just as stuffed with a mish-mash of items. Expensive espresso machines pack tightly against mini-fridges filled with milk, rows of flavored syrup, and possibly a sexy fireman’s calendar. Objectification, it appears, is a two-way street in espresso land.

Many stands don’t even have water hook-ups. The baristas make arrangements with local businesses, and haul buckets of water to the stand during their break. Some filter, some don’t. Think about that the next time you order a drink. Adding to the rustic atmosphere, many also use creative means to attract business. Like the famed road-trip hot dog stands shaped like hot dogs, many stands get visual in the same way. High Flying Espresso features an oversized plaster rendition of a coffee saucer perched on the roof of the barista box. Since stands are also fans of punning, the “saucer” looks vaguely space age, to match its “High Flying Espresso” moniker.

Other stands, not lucky enough to have giant coffee mugs on their roofs, announce their presence with white lightbox boards that advertise the daily special. My favorite sign, which made use of that literary device known as parallel structure, was “New Manager! New Drinks! New Girls!” Again, these lightbox signs broadcast not only specials but also cute phrase and other enticements to stop by at this particular stand, and not the one three hundred feet down the road. Think: the sayings on church lightbox boards, and you have the right idea. Despite the major efforts of stands to use architectural adornments to boost sales, the real attraction of these places, the one that makes customers keep coming back punchcard after punchcard, is the staff. The young, female staff.

Getting a job as a Mocha Ho is right up there with Abercrombie and Fitch in cachet among the high school set. Although the 5am shifts with the best tips go to veterans, a high school girl can make serious cash slinging mochas afternoons after school. The tips (under the table, of course) are sucked into Coinstars and exchanged for crisp twenties. Of course, all these tips come at a price way beyond getting sweaty lugging water and steaming milk.

According to my insider friend, whose tips financed her Seven jeans habit all through high school and college, low-cut tops were encouraged and mentioning boyfriends was discouraged. The girls themselves are fake n baked and usually sporting acrylic nails (bought with your tips, thank you very much). Their long, highlighted hair falls in their face as they lean over the drive-thru window to give you your drink, and an eyeful of their cleavage. They conform perfectly to the suburban strip mall aesthetic. Part of their job is stringing along the male customers, who buy their friendship with their daily coffee. The drawback to this part of the job lies in the inability of the male clientele to understand the bounds of the barista-customer relationship. “Do you have a boyfriend?” “You know, I could take care of you.” “Marry Me, Baby.” Once, getting into my barista friend’s car, I noticed a rotting salad from a local deli sitting on the dashboard. “What is that?” I asked. “Oh, I told some guy I was hungry and he went out and bought me it.” In case you ever wondered where all the sketchballs from craigslist hang out, now you know. Head to your local barista stand.

The other danger, besides the male predators, is the robbers. As mentioned before, espresso stands are Home Depot-esque insta-barns stationed in marginal parking lot space. Highway 99, for example, renowned for its $29.99 motels with hourly rates, fast food joints, and low-rent retailers, has drive-thru stands at the approximate rate of one every one to two minute drive. My friend working on Highway 99 was robbed at gunpoint. Twice. She relayed this information to me, by phone, in an odd distanced tone:

Her: “The stand got robbed today.”

Me: “Seriously? Ohmigod! Who was there?”

Her: “Me.”

She was robbed by a Bonnie and Clyde duo driving a stolen car that the police never caught despite her quick thinking to jot down a license plate number. Of course she didn’t quit, not even after the second time she was robbed. The money was too good. Potential stand robbers, however, should note that these places do not keep much cash on hand, for the precise reason that they are such easy targets. Go for the tip jar instead.

Just as stands have developed 7-11-type policies to deal with robbers, so many stands have institutionalized the sluttiness of their employees. To guarantee their customers they serve up only the finest (girls), stands have started marketing based on the attractiveness of their Mocha Hos. Best Friend Espresso has themed days, where baristas dress like sexy fill-in-the-blanks (angels, cheerleaders, and baby animals being popular subjects). However, according to another barista source, their coffee tastes terrible, which she attributes to a failure to clean the machine. But then again, why would a barista bother to clean the machine after she went through all that trouble to put on a costume?

While hot girls definitely attract many male motorists, one needn’t forget the other stimulant these places offer: caffeine, often in sweetened and fattened form, on the go. Drive-thru espresso stands therefore provide service to all types, grandmas (who think you look like such a nice girl) and females included. Except for the brazenly one-step-up from a strip club places, morning commuter types feel right at home.

The pricing of drive-thrus beats Starbucks by a long shot (which by the way, has recently been installing drive-thrus to try and compete with the hot chicks). Unlike most storefront cafes, drive-thru espresso stands almost always have afternoon happy hour specials and exotic flavor shots on the cheap. They average one to two dollars less than a Starbucks, and for coffee fiends (aka Seattleites), it really adds up. $1.99 special hazelnut lattes are the bread and butter of these places. The quality of the barista varies more than your average Starbucks (attributable, I think, to the attractiveness requirement) but finding the right place is as rewarding as filling up your drink punch card. These places are best for flavored lattes, mochas, and Americans. Although some of them do Frappucino-type beverages, they’re often from those fairground swirler machines, and not the real deal. The pickiness of Seattle coffee drinkers means places pulling gross shots won’t survive for long, so the overall quality of the coffee remains high. As Starbucks and other chains increasingly move over to button-based espresso making, instead of pulling their own shots, drive-thrus may become a classic option some prefer to a Starbucks espresso with steamed homogenized milk.

The prevalence of drive-thru espresso stands is a point of pride for many Seattle residents—a testament to the true scope of the city’s caffeine addiction. Counting up how many Starbucks and drive-thrus within a town or stretch of highway and shaking your head is a conversation topic on par with “How are those Mariners?” Slowly, the drive-thru trend is spreading to other areas, with Eastern Washington, Portland, and Northern California all developing a speckling of espresso stands. Nowhere but Seattle, however, is the thirst for perfectly pulled shots so strong, and the saturation level so high (at least three drive-thru espresso stands for each Starbucks) that you question how these stands can make money at all. Then you go back for your third grande wet vanilla skim cappuccino of the week, and you understand.

Editor's Note: Also! Have you heard? Mocha-Tea Caffe and Grab-N-Go Espresso are back, feminized and raring to serve espresso! We hear they are ingeniously stocked, meticulously organized and overwhelmed with chicks.