The Starbucks at the CIA headquarters is the one location where baristas will never ask for your name, saving you the frustration of mispronunciations, misspellings and a spate of other nuisances that comes with having your identity attached to your coffee.
Readers Digest noted there was a welcome shroud of secrecy at Starbucks in Langley, Virginia., where baristas are required to maintain anonymity and not ask for the customer’s name.
Known as “Stealthy Starbucks” or “Store Number 1,” the CIA branch employs nine baristas who have had to undergo rigorous interviews and background checks before donning their green aprons, The Washington Post reported.
And while the store doesn’t offer any frequent-customer award cards because officials fear that personal information stored on those cards could end up in the wrong hands, the coffee shop is said to be one of the busiest hubs.
“Coffee culture is just huge in the military, and many in the CIA come from that culture,” said Vince Houghton, an intelligence expert and curator at the International Spy Museum, per the Post.
“Urban myth says the CIA Starbucks is the busiest in the world, and to me that makes perfect sense. This is a population who have to be alert and spend hours poring through documents. If they miss a word, people can die.”
The CIA headquarters is an unusual setting for a coffee shop, but Starbucks has set up camp in plenty of strange settings: an old bank vault in Amsterdam, the Berlin Wall, aboard a Navy warship and below a recreation of the Shah Mosque of Isfahan, Market Watch noted.