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You are here: Home / TRAVEL / What It’s Like To Be A Coffee Barista To The Stars

What It’s Like To Be A Coffee Barista To The Stars

6/3/15

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Coffee Barista to the Stars
Please welcome special guest author Kim Schneider to the blog. I love this story about being a coffee barista to the stars and hope you do as well.

Nicole Kidman is a sweetheart, Kim Kardashian a nice and pretty “kid” when she’s got her hair in a ponytail and isn’t wearing makeup and Benjamin Bratt not just gorgeous but intensely spiritual.

Just ask Karen Ramos, who also happens to know that Kidman likes her cappucino extra dry, husband Keith Urban just regular coffee, black.

The state of Louisiana’s generous film tax credit has not just brought film production crews to citiesacross the state, it’s also brought a number of head-turning stars. New Orleans has been ground zero for Hollywood mega-productions like the upcoming Jurassic World, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and a film in the hit Twilight series, but Northern Louisiana has likewise attracted so many films that recognizable celebrities have become regulars at spots like the Shreveport Convention Center and Hilton hotel, where Ramos runs the coffee shop.
Barista to the Stars
The Coffee Talk Cafe manager has become a minor celebrity herself for the collection she’s amassed of signed photos of leading men and women. Glossy photos, signed to “the friendly” or “lovely” or “sweet” Karen cover the walls of the coffee shop otherwise known for its Starbucks brews and friendly service. It all started, she says, with she had a casual conversation with Vivica Fox’s hairdresser about the star’s long tresses. The stylist brought her client in one day, Fox ordered a regular black coffee, and “every morning after, she came in for the same.”

Nicole Kidman was another stand-out—and not initially for her taste in films. “I didn’t like her movies until I met her,” Ramos noted. “But she’s a sweetheart and so is her husband; he’s over there (she says motioning to a picture on the other end of the store, top row right). She drinks a capaccino extra dry. It’s more foam than coffee. Her daughter drinks only the foam.”
Coffee Barista to the Stars
Thanks to a film tax incentive of 30 percent on in-state goods and services and 35 percent on local labor, Louisiana has become the self-proclaimed “movie making capitol of the world.” Some 400 films and numerous television series were made in Louisiana in the past 10 years. Crews have singled out locations like New Orleans’ French Quarter and pretty Natchitoches—the state’s oldest city and setting of the film “Steel Magnolias”—for their distinctive architecture. But the “lack” of a tell-tale look has proven beneficial too, for cities like Shreveport, which has doubled as Portland, New York, Kansas City, Maine, the Bering Sea and Shreveport itself; the film “Homeland Security” revolves around a break-in at the local R.W. Norton Art Gallery.

In the meantime, celebrities who often live in a filming city for a month or more get the chance to enjoy a similiarly varied culture that Chris Jay, public relations and social media manager for the Shreveport-Bossier Convention and Tourist Bureau, calls “not quite cajun, not quite Texas,” but an amalgum of both along with the many other world cultures represented by the varied population. Even the local food scene offers interesting twists like you find at Kim’s Seafood and Po-Boy; there, Vietnam native Duc Duong, a former shrimper displaced from New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, melds foods of his former and current homes with tasty delicacies like crawfish fried rice and egg rolls.

Its northern Louisiana location has also been fortuitous for Shreveport. During hurricane season, as many as five or six film crews are generally in this northern Louisiana region at any given time, says Jay. It’s not so much that crews are afraid of bad weather; they can’t get insurance during hurricane season until they get closer to the state’s northern border. Production companies then hire locals as extras and crew members; some, like Moonbot Productions—winner of a 2012 Academy Award for Best Short animated film—have permanently set up shop.

Some films made in Shreveport and other parts of northern Louisiana include “Year Without a Santa Claus” with John Goodman; “Homeland Security” with Antonio Banderas and Meg Ryan and “Blonde Ambition” with Jessica Simpson. Ramos will no doubt find a way to lure in Nicholas Cage, currently filming the all-3D “Drive Angry” in town, just as she did a reluctant Gerard Butler, who wasn’t even staying in the hotel. But it will be hard to beat her meeting with Benjamin Bratt, who filmed “Snitch” in Shreveport.
Coffee Barista to the Stars
“You feel peace when he’s around you,” she said. “He’s really tall, but I don’t know, everybody said the same thing. He’s so peaceful.” The energy in town during filming is anything but peaceful, though, she says, though along with a new energy, film crews have ushered in better manners, Ramos believes. “People are treating other people better,” she notes, “because you never know who you might be talking to.” Celebrities, likewise, seem to like the region’s good manners and low-key vibe.

“They don’t get all the paparazzi, the craziness going on, people seeking autographs,” Ramos notes, rather ironically, given the 150-and-counting signed photos on her wall. “It all started like ‘Let’s see what happens.’ Now we have more pictures in back, waiting to hang. We’re running out of space.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Kim Schneider is a long-time newspaper and magazine journalist whose 10-plus years on a full-time travel beat has taken her to most every corner of the Midwest and, increasingly, to much of the rest of the world. She especially loves the quote by her favorite author John Steinbeck: “A journey is best measured in friends, not miles” and likes nothing better than when a trip is measured by the people she’s connected with along the way. Follow her travels via Twitter at @traveling_coach and Instagram at @travelingcoachkim.

Comments

  1. Liz @ Yes/No Films says

    June 9, 2015 at 11:31 am

    That’s awesome!

  2. Fran Folsom says

    June 3, 2015 at 11:43 am

    I loved this article. I”m sorry i missed this coffee shop when was in Shreveport. Will look for it when i go back.

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About Me


Deb is a travel writer/influencer from Michigan whose work takes her across the country in search of unique (think haunted & strange) and interesting attractions, landmarks, cities and towns.

She’s an avid road-tripper that loves staying in haunted locations, but enjoys everything from glamping to luxury accommodations.

She suffers from an incurable case of wanderlust, is a self-proclaimed wimp when it comes to extreme adventures, but is the first in line for ghost hunts.
Email her at [email protected]

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