Modern Times, the San Diego-based beer and coffee company, will have an elaborate float in the local Pride parade and has plans for a rocking after-party.
BY CHRIS RYAN
BARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE
Photos courtesy of Modern Times
This article is part of a series highlighting coffee shops across the country celebrating Pride Month. If you have any stories or coffee shops you’d like to highlight, drop us a line.
When the San Diego LGBT Pride event rolls around each year, Modern Times Beer & Coffee does its best to go all out for the festivities. Things will be no different in 2018: When Pride hits San Diego on July 14, Modern Times will be breaking out a parade float and hosting a Pride after-party near the end of the parade route.
For Modern Times, getting involved in Pride is about more than just having a good time at San Diego’s once-a-year event. “We think it’s a worthwhile cause for everyone,” says Steve Reynolds, community outreach coordinator at Modern Times Beer & Coffee. “We support Pride Month because we stand with the LGBTQ+ community every month, and with recent, federally endorsed surges in hateful, bigoted nonsense, we think it’s more important than ever to display that support publicly.”
In recent years, Modern Times has expanded along the West Coast, opening breweries in Portland, Ore., and Los Angeles. Steve says that Modern Times’ original 2018 Pride plan was to have parade floats in Portland and Los Angeles as well, but that parade capacity filled up in both markets.
But Modern Times will be representing at the San Diego LGBT Pride event, and they’ll do their best to make it a float to remember. The theme suggestion for floats at the event is “Persist With Pride,” and Steve says the Modern Times team took the theme and ran from there. “We let that roll around in our Art-Ninjas’ synapses, and it emerged as a vintage-inspired futuristic utopia of enlightened (see also, “common-sense-and-basic-human-decency-inspired”) inclusion. We have a pretty well-known penchant for sci-fi, which will inspire the landscapes in the backdrop, along with a lot of green to symbolize our imaginary utopia’s resounding triumph over suburban sprawl.”
San Diegans will have to wait until San Diego LGBT Pride on July 14 to see the sci-fi-inspired float. Following the event, Modern Times will present its after-party; while details are currently sparse, the party may also have some of the float’s grandiosity. “We don’t have the full details on the party yet, but we can tell you that last year’s post-parade tap takeover was absolutely bonkers, and this year’s soirée promises to be even radder,” says Steve.
For more on Modern Times, check out their website here.
