Mia Mintz moved to New York from Texas almost a year ago. "If I don't try this, I'm going to hate myself forever," she told herself, and that was reason enough to go. She already knew Jett, a friend from years back when the two worked a show together at a theater in Delaware. When she got to the city, Jett put in a word with his manager, Lauren, and helped her land a job at Joe Coffee's Lincoln Square cafe. That's when Mia finally started to relax. It was the first time in New York she felt solid.
Lauren, her manager, has backed her since. Early on, Lauren told her she didn't need to worry about anything at the cafe, that she was good there, that the team had her back. Lauren has called her "Texas" every day since, a nickname that has stuck from her first shift to now. When the first few months got hard, Lauren told her to hold tight. "The first month is going to suck. The second month might still suck a little bit. The third month's going to get a lot better." That advice held true, Mia says, and now she has her own version of it for anyone just starting out: "Find your people, stick to them, let them help you grow."
Nearly a year in, Mia has never had a job where the people walking through the door understand she's a person beyond the job itself. "We are a part of so many people's daily routine," she says, and the regulars have become part of hers too. "It feels like a family away from my family."
She and Jett still work the same shifts, a friendship that started on a stage in Delaware and now plays out across the same cafe counter. Mia is a theater kid at heart. Ask her favorite musical and she won't hesitate. Rent. Ask how she takes her coffee and she's just as certain, a large iced vanilla latte with whole milk, even in a blizzard, always iced. These days, every time she sees the Empire State Building, she still thinks about how far she's come.
"Every single day is a pinch-me moment," Mia says.
