Coffee Check: why a tech YouTuber decided to open a coffee shop

David Cogen has been leading a double life for eight months. By day: a YouTuber and creator, the face of TheUnlockr, testing phones, testing e-bikes and explaining how food smokers really work. Evening and morning and every other available moment in between: a coffee shop entrepreneur working to get a spot called Coffee Check up and running in Brooklyn. The whole thing started late last year and quickly escalated. After his previous lease expired, he needed a new place to work, came up with a business idea for it that didn't quite pan out, decided to turn his new space into a coffee roastery, and then realized there was a front door facing the street. Why not open a café too?

Coffee Check has been open since late August, and on the morning I visit it's impressively busy for a brand new spot tucked away on an otherwise residential street in Greenpoint. The space is airy and open, with a long counter and bar to the right and a large wooden communal table to the left. A customer sits in a comfortable armchair in the corner and takes a work call at a surprisingly high volume. There are power outlets everywhere, the WiFi is blazingly fast, and the smart lighting is designed to both look beautiful and keep the houseplants alive. It's your local coffee shop, designed by a major techie.

Cogen himself comes in around 10:30 a.m., checks in with the baristas and then offers me a tour of the place. He leads me through the café and then through a locked glass door into the back half of Coffee Check, a fully functioning production studio that other creatives and companies can rent on Peerspace. (If you're counting, that's three businesses he runs now: YouTube, Coffee, and Rental.) He's particularly excited about the kitchen, which you wouldn't normally find in a rentable studio—and he's furnished it the way it is Appliances are easy to remove and add in hopes of posting some kitchen appliance reviews on YouTube. A couple of e-bikes from another video sit in the corner next to a monstrous Samsung TV intended for an upcoming video.

Finally, Cogen leads me into the podcast studio, a huge booth with a couch and two chairs that he claims he bought from Finland – and got at a discount by offering to use the booth as the company's New York showroom. (That's four stores.) Cogen sits down in a chair, points me to the couch, turns on the Logitech microphones and begins to tell me his story.

In this episode of The Vergecastthe second part of the two-part miniseries we're calling “How to Make It in the Future,” Cogen tells the story of how a YouTuber becomes a coffee shop owner. We'll revisit how the phrase “Coffee, Check” became part of his brand in the first place, and then dive into how he turned his love of coffee into a deep knowledge of it and what it took to bring Coffee Check to market to bring and run.

Cogen has spent a lot of time thinking about the mix of content and coffee in his future life. After living the life of a constant creator for 13 years, there is something more romantic and slow-paced about running a local business. But he's also spent years filming his coffee for his videos; Does he also aspire to be a coffee YouTuber? And can you create content about your business without becoming a content company and changing the entire purpose of the thing you created? Cogen struggles with the same issues every YouTuber deals with – and he invests his money and time trying to do better.

If you'd like to learn more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started:

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