Oh, Espresso Royale, truly the most noble of coffee venues, you continue to awe us. Situated firmly at a locus central to our travel on campus, your symbol is a shining beacon of hope for the downtrodden and numb, those who seek only a caffeine injection to propel them through one more panic-ridden day of study.

Inside, your tables and chairs offer comforting, welcoming sites of study when the UGLi is full of noisy freshmen. Your majestic tones of brown and deep red exultantly restore our energy, similar to how your coffee restores us like an IV full of saline. Yours, Espresso Royale, is a kingdom free of meaningless distractions.

Among your competitors, who could challenge you? Not Amer's! And as for the rest, ha! What “rest?” Starbucks, without pretension toward independence? Surely not Ambrosia or Rendezvous — what are they in the face of your your innocuous accessibility? Great king of coffee, you know the power of the horde, of coffee handed out en masse to your subjects.

We return, Wednesday after Wednesday for your $2 lattes. The rest of the week is an apathetic haze as we survey the seat of your power, the drip coffee, each variety calling out our names like an old friend. There is no usurper, Espresso, no challenger. Your throne is secure.