Stacie Boyls | Arts & Life Writer
Once the holidays rolled around this year, Dichotomy Coffee & Spirits transformed into a whimsical festive display complete with life-sized “gingerbread” details, floating presents, Whoville-style décor and this year, an igloo home to plush penguins.
Baristas, their family members and even longtime regulars gathered to put up the elaborate display in one day. With 20-30 people on deck, the display set up required around 10 hours of manual labor.
The decorating day began around 7 a.m., with workers rotating in and out until late afternoon. Some stay all day; others arrive when they can. A few, like shift lead and Waco native Jami Jackson, even showed up straight from the airport.
“I was here from 9:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m., just working on little details,” she said.
Waco native Cody Fergusson, founding member of Dichotomy, said the tradition of the decoration project began in 2019 when the shop joined a franchise-style Christmas pop-up bar called “Miracle,” founded in New York City. Since 2023, Dichotomy has established its own, independent holiday decoration project, now called “Spirit of Cheer.”
“For several years, we bought into that kind of Miracle idea, and that was where this all originated, “ he said. “And then we just started being like, ‘You know what? What if we just come up with our own drink recipes?’ We have all these decorations now, and we’re just going to decorate like crazy, call it ‘Spirit of Cheer’ here at Dichotomy, and we’ll do our own thing.”
Every year, the theme changes slightly. The first fully original Dichotomy holiday concept, after departing the Miracle franchise, leaned into a Whoville theme. This year’s vibe, Fergusson said, is more “Christmas-ville with a dash of Who.”
One of the biggest projects is the shop’s towering gingerbread house divider. It was originally built by the boyfriend of a former co-owner. What began as a simple carpentry challenge has turned into a yearly reconstruction project.
The structure comes apart into more than a dozen components, complete with walls, trim, windows, a wired roof and two-by-four framing. Everything, including this impressive structure, must be rebuilt each year when the shop closes so the full staff can transform it.
According to Fergusson, the decoration process has turned into a community event, with loyal customers and mutual friends of employees joining together on decoration day. Fergusson also noted that the process, though laborious, has become increasingly efficient every year. What used to take 18 to 20 hours of work can now be fit into eight to 10.
“It’s fun, too, because we fortunately have a really close following of some regular customers that have been customers for over a decade,” he said. “A few of those people will also just kind of pop in on that day that we’re closed, not looking for drink service, but just here to help.”
Dichotomy Coffee & Spirits is located at 508 Austin Ave. Store hours are 6 a.m. – 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and 6 a.m. – 12 a.m. on Friday and Saturday. Decorations will stay up through New Year’s Day.
