Down and out at Diesel

These days, Marc Levy can afford to buy a sandwich or two at Diesel. But he recalls his unemployment days when he'd spent hours there slowly munching on a bag of its day-old bagels - or furtively consuming the granola he'd stored in his backpack:

Worst of all was that in addition to taking up space and sucking up electricity, I wasn't tipping. Every Thai iced tea was simultaneously delicious and shame inducing; every time I got 10 stamps on my card and a dollar off was a twist of the knife; and reusing a glass and saving another dime was the final insult.