Hanging off a telephone pole next to a coffee shack is my favorite kind of art. It’s paint on wood, more specifically, a giant coffee cup that draws people in to pull up to the drive through coffee cart. It wasn’t until I was doing a bit of photo manipulation that I noticed the head of whip cream frothing on top of the coffee. I couldn’t tell you if it’s a latte gone crazy or a macchiato or some other newfangled coffee drink but with a few tweaks with the photo software the coffee cup painting took on a sheen and a glimmer beneath it’s weathered exterior that made it look even more beautiful. It’s as if it was hung too high on a telephone pole for me to truly appreciate it. I was marveling over the foam waves and the saucer circles and the glint of sunshine bursting in the middle of the mug and around the rim of the handle. It’s folk art that’s too classy to be going under appreciated in it’s parking lot environment.

The coffee cart is surrounded by an auto parts store, a hot dog restaurant and I think, another auto parts store. It’s all part of the giant parking area for the Portland Meadows horse racing complex. I’m not enough of a coffee snob to tell you whether the coffee I had there once was good or not. If you are a coffee snob you may not think this is your type of place unless you’re craving a cup of coffee and a hot dog on your way to place a trifecta bet at the track. I want to say that this is the type of place that puts a chocolate covered coffee bean on the plastic lid of your coffee cup–I love that, but then again I’m not certain that’s the case.

The one thing I am certain about is that the sign is a stunner and admiring a photo of it has to be the next best thing to seeing it in person.