LOS ANGELES – What’s the way to comedian Danny Palumbo’s heart? A good, strong cup of plain gas station coffee, he wrote in a column in the Austin Chronicle reports. He eschews pumpkin spice lattes—or any latte—to sip instead coffee from gas stations. 

Why? “Because it transcends. It extends to bodegas, car shops, funeral homes, adoption centers—wherever there is a small stack of Styrofoam cups next to some afterthought coffee. It's always basic, but shouldn't it be?” He extols the virtues of how inexpensive it is, how it provides the needed jolt of caffeine and “for the instant dose of enthusiasm it gives me.” 

Palumbo also takes a tongue-in-cheek approach to nondairy creamers and “casino-style machines” that “churn out coffee.” This type of coffee is “for multitasking and staying awake behind the wheel. It's what you drink when you grew up in a town without a coffee shop. It's for people struggling and making moves.”

He ended his column with a plea to skip the Starbucks fancy drinks and head straight to the honest, plain coffee. “Don’t fall for the latte trap. Drink … gas station coffee” instead. Another plus is that convenience stores are even more ubiquitous than coffee shops.