For the past eight months, David Cogen has been living a double life. By day, I’m a YouTuber and creator, and the face of TheUnlockr, where I review cell phones, test electric bikes, and explain how food smokers really work. At night, in the morning, and every moment in between, a coffee shop entrepreneur works to get a Brooklyn spot called Coffee Check up and running. Things started late last year and quickly escalated. He needed a new workspace after his previous lease ended. I had a business idea, but it didn’t work out. We decided to repurpose our new space as a coffee roastery. Then I noticed there was a front door on the street. Would you like to open a cafe too?
Coffee Check has been open since late August, and on the morning I visited, it was surprisingly busy for a brand new shop in a residential area of Greenpoint. The interior is airy, with a long counter and bar to the right and a large communal wooden table to the left. The customer sits in a comfy chair in the corner of the room and takes a work call at an alarmingly high volume. There are outlets everywhere, Wi-Fi is incredibly fast, and smart lighting settings are tuned to look great and keep your indoor plants alive. It’s your local coffee shop designed by a big tech geek.
Mr. Kogen himself arrived around 10:30 a.m., connected with the barista, and gave me a tour of the store. He led me inside the coffee shop and through a locked glass door into the back half of the Coffee Check space. It’s a fully functional production studio that other creators and businesses can rent on Peerspace. (By my count, he currently owns three businesses: YouTube, coffee, and landlording.) He’s especially excited about the kitchen, which you can’t find in a typical rental studio. That’s what he’s set up to do. I want to review kitchen appliances on YouTube and it’s easy to remove and add appliances. A bunch of electric bikes from another video sit in the corner next to a giant Samsung TV that will be used for future videos.
Eventually, Kogen directed me to a podcast studio. It was a huge booth with a sofa and two chairs that had been bought from Finland, and I got a discount by offering to use the booth as the company’s New York showroom. (That’s four businesses.) Kogen sat down, turned me toward the couch, turned on his Logitech microphone, and began telling his story.
This episode of The Vergecast is the second in a two-part miniseries called “How to Build the Future,” in which Kogen tells the story of how a YouTuber becomes a coffee shop owner. Going back to how the phrase “Coffee, Check” became part of his brand in the first place, how he turned his love of coffee into deep knowledge, and how to get a coffee check. Dig into what was needed. And running.
Cogen has spent a lot of time thinking about the combination of content and coffee in his future life. After 13 years of always being a creator, there’s something romantic and slow-paced about running a local business. But he’s also spent years filming coffee for videos. Does he also want to become a coffee YouTuber? And can you create content about your business without becoming a content business and changing the whole purpose of what you create? Kogen is working on the same thing that all creators work on: We are spending money and time to make it better.
If you would like to learn more about what we discuss in this episode, start with the links below.
