Coffeeshop as Place

Bi-Weekly Topics for Nov. 1, 2003

Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20060115161757/www.magpienest.org/scgi-bin/wiki.pl?CoffeeShopAsPlace

 

A Sip or Two

By Laughing~Knees

Japanese Maples aglow in the autumn woods of Okutama, Japan, 2000.

This is the 9th installment of the ongoing essay series at Ecotone: Writing About Place. The current topic is Coffee Shop As Place. Please drop by and read other contributions, or feel free to submit your own essay.

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Gathering around the water hole to share each other’s thirst must be as old as time itself; nearly all communal creatures do it, from willows crowding the river’s edge, to ants at a strip of spilled water on a baking pavement, giraffes and elephants stepping to the swamp’s edge, to moose at the forest boundary and brown bears swiping for salmon. Water is life and water is the common denominator. We humans have perfected the art of carrying the water off and slaking our thirst in relative safety.

Coffee shops, tea shops, bars, pubs, taverns, beer halls, all promote the drink, and like our thirsty savannah ancestors we flock to them as if bidden to partake of the fountain of youth. There we sit bantering, flirting, watching, spilling our hearts and ideas, contemplating, laughing and crying together while the essence of our lives trickles down our throats. Sitting in a coffee shop you get the impression that in spite of the time occupying a chair, the human drama unfolds right before your eyes. You can sit for hours watching, just simply watching, and the time seems filled with meaning.

Three coffee shops in particular have made impressions in my life, the Beanery in Eugene, Oregon and Cafe Algiers in Cambridge, Massachusetts, both in the U.S., and Ben’s Cafe in Takadanobaba here in Tokyo. They each harbored times in my life during which great changes were taking place both in my heart and in my outlook.

The Beanery was a college coffee shop, located right outside the University of Oregon campus. I passed by it every morning when I headed to my undergraduate English courses and later, in graduate school, on my way to architecture studio. Altogether it accompanied 9 years of my life, and as I matured from a wide-eyed eighteen year old straight off the boat from Japan to a 26 year old man who was transformed by the wild mountains and trees around the town, I also watched the Beanery change from a remnant of the hippie movement into a popular gathering place for yuppie bohemian wannabe’s.

My years at the University of Oregon were some of the most memorable in my life, with hordes of friends filtering by each time I stepped out of my dormitory room or apartment. And yet they were also filled with apprehension and self-doubt as I struggled with my place and identity coming from a childhood growing up in Japan, where I intensely disliked the humiliating arrogance of the Americans I went to school with. I was living in the very country that bred the people who forced the 75% of students in my international school who didn’t come from America to study seven years of American history, one year of world history, and half a year of Japanese history, to play American football and basketball when most wanted to play soccer, to take secondary roles in the musicals that the school held every year because the main roles had to feature white characters, and even to have our non-Anglosaxon names made fun of because they happened to sound funny to the Americans. I carried all these resentments and cautions with me when I went to America and was struck quite dumb when I found out that people in America are not like the Americans I knew back in high school. It took a number of years to realize that I could actually relate to a lot of Americans and even become intimate friends. When the first white American woman actually professed that she was in love with me, I couldn’t believe my ears; me, a dark-skinned, skinny half-Asian, who in the first few years in America just didn’t get what Americans were laughing at so hard at the dinner tables because the jokes seemed so black and cruel, loved by a white American woman? It didn’t seem real.

The hours that these friends and lovers spent with me at the coffee tables, hours and hours of talking until the secret places of my heart and mind, that I had never shared with anyone in my life before, no longer seemed so unusual or vulnerable, mingled with the stories that my friends shared with me, and the friendships became bonded. Coffee and tea ran with humanity, with messages of understanding. The caffeine brightened our recognition of one another.

Boston brought all that glittering camaraderie down. Out of work, nearly penniless, with no friends, I spent a lot of time wandering the streets of Boston and Cambridge, looking into shop windows and sitting along the banks of the Charles river, watching nighthawks dive and rowers slicing the shining waters. After rent and food, what little change I managed to save I used on books and for cups of precious coffee at some of the coffee shops around town. I especially savored my time in the dim, smoky warrens of Cafe Algiers right near the center of Harvard Square. All sorts of characters gathered here, and the nooks and crannies allowed you to hide for hours engrossed in a book. I met various people here, some of whom became valuable friends who made Boston easier to bear. One time a woman wearing a white shawl noticed that I was reading Peter Mathiessen’s “The Snow Leopard” and she took a place next to me to discuss why she thought Mathiessen was a cruel, irresponsible man for leaving his son alone back in America just after his wife died. It was a long, stimulating conversation that to this day I have not forgotten.

Cafe Algiers helped nurture a certain boldness and willingness to be a bit tougher as I struggled to survive in the city. It countered the great anger that overcame me at times when I continued to fail to find work as an architect. It was one of the places that helped me realize that perhaps I wasn’t really cut out to be an architect and that the desire to write, which had always pushed its way into the forefront of my ambitions since I was a boy, might better serve my bent. In the cafe I met the kind of people I enjoyed working with, spending time with, talking to. They were the people with whom I could scheme and plan for the future. As coffee splotched the napkins upon which we jotted our ideas, the limitations of the lighting of the place curbed the early rush into becoming an architect further and further into the demands of my scribblings.

Boston never really panned out, in spite of the keen friendships and sublime bicycle rides on those cold, winter nights. When a drunk roommate broke down my bedroom door one evening and threatened to bash my face in, and the police came swarming all over the apartment threatening to bring us all in (and even my girlfriend refused to come over afterwards to offer some comfort), I felt that it was the last straw. America was just too unhinged, too accepting of unacceptable behavior. My brother had recently been hit by a car and the driver had refused to apologize (which was all my brother had asked for), and she had had enough money to hire a better lawyer than my brother could afford, so she didn’t even have to pay my brother’s hospital bill. My mother had been mugged, twice. My uncle lived homeless in Brooklyn. My brother was attacked by some teenagers, beaten, and his bicycle stolen from him. I bicycled along the Charles river one afternoon and watched, helpless, as three teenage boys accosted a woman on her bicycle and demanded that she hand it over to them. When she refused, they moved in to beat her, only to be stopped by two huge, football-player-like men, who warned the boys to stop. The boys sneered at them and said, “You can’t touch us. We’re juveniles. If you touch us you’ll get time. If we go to jail, we’ll be out tomorrow.” One night, while working a part-time, graveyard shift job as a giftshop clerk at the Park Hotel in downtown Boston, a character, a young white man, came sidling into the store and started furtively shoplifting chocolate bars. When I asked him to put the bars back, he slipped a pistol out of his pocket and pointed it at my nose. “Ya gonna do somethin about it, punk? Why don’t ya fuckin’ Ayrabs go back to where ya came from, huh, mother-fucker!” He ran off, leaving me so shaken I collapsed to the floor. When my helper, a black woman two years older than me, returned from the toilet, all she said was, “Man, you sure ain’t got no street smarts, kid.” There wasn’t even mention of calling the police. And behind all this was the Gulf war, cheered on by most of the people I saw around me, and so little thought of that on the day that America attacked Iraq, while working part time in a bookstore, hearing the announcement over the store’s intercom radio, I dropped the books I was carrying for a customer and whispered in shock, “They actually attacked Iraq. They actually started the war.” The customer kicked one of the books and growled, “I don’t give a shit about any goddamn war! Pick that shit up and finish getting my order for me.” And mumbling to the side, “Goddamn Arabs think they own the world.” Words like that tend to stick, no matter how misguided you know them to be.

And so I returned to Japan, left my girlfriend behind, my friends, my hopes of being an architect. When reaching Narita Airport in Tokyo, the broken connection hurt so bad that I immediately grabbed a phone and tried to reassure myself of my girlfriend’s faith in me… she had no words, no assurances that she would be waiting for me to return. And what right did I have to expect that? I broke down sobbing in the middle of the arrivals area, hundreds of strangers staring at me in puzzlement. It was perhaps the most humiliating moment in my life. And an ignoble return to the country that had imprinted itself upon my childhood and adolescence.

I settled down, got married, eventually finding a place to live in Tokyo. Architecture became a distant dream. I began to spend lots of time up in the mountains, walking, thinking, living close to what I had always imagined I understood best. I started and finished my first book. That book was born in the third great coffee shop of desire: Ben’s Cafe in Takadanobaba, a student dominated area in west part of Tokyo proper. I went there nearly every day, sometimes for hours, to sit and write and write and think and write some more. Three thick notebooks were filled with hand scribbled words. After finishing the writing for the day, I would sip a cup of cocoa and converse with the New Yorker owner Ben or with the two Japanese waitresses who were both studying art. It seemed I was making a few friends here in Tokyo now.

Then in 2001, a week after a personal tragedy, while sitting and talking with the owner, the news hit over the radio. Ben didn’t react at first he was so shocked, but when he recovered he turned up the volume and the distinct words, “At roughly nine o’clock this morning a plane flew into one of the towers of the World Trade Center.” We sat listening, speechless, neither the bite of the words quite real, nor the bright lights and drifting cigarette smoke of the coffee shop. Ben began to babble with another American in the room, repeatedly scrambling over to the computer installed in one corner of the room, to check the news. But I didn’t hear much of what he said. My only thought was of my mother, who lived in midtown Manhattan and my brother in Boston. I rushed home and fumbled with the telephone, dialing the number several times, but each time getting only a busy signal. I got my brother right away and he was okay, but I couldn’t get through to my mother, and my brother hadn’t been able to contact her either. For five days this lasted before I could get through. When I finally did, her voice was shaken and so full of fear that a great, great rage awoke in my heart. At all people who would either cause or influence events that would make my mother so fearful and and so overflowing with tears. To find out what was happening I stopped by Ben’s Cafe every afternoon before work, and asked Ben what he had heard. The place was abuzz with ex-patriot Americans trying to make sense of what had happened.

As the buildup toward another war began and the world seemed as if it was on the verge of coming to an end, the fear and anguish of all that was happening seemed about to burst out of me. One evening, while sitting with my Japanese students out in the terrace of Ben’s Cafe, one of the students, a young woman who had a difficult time comprehending all the to-do that Americans were inundating the world media with, asked me why I was taking all this so personally and with such conviction. “You’re much too serious.” she said, much too flippantly. I turned to her, and before all the students all the apprehension melted into grief and sorrow and helplessness. I had a duty to be their teacher and to protect my position, but just being human was all I could manage. I broke down, once again in public in front of many people I didn’t know well, and it seemed as if the tears would never stop. My student, the woman, held my hand and comforted me, and sat just saying soft words, as did the other students. It was their first experience of a foreigner in pain.

And so the coffee shop protected me and healed me. The draw of the watering place and its power to remind you of life. The place where the community gathers to remember that all that matters is that life goes on and that it is beautiful enough just to watch.

In the final half hour at Ben’s my student friend stood up and went into the shop. She came back with a new mug of cocoa, set it down in front of me, and smiled. “Maybe this will make you feel better,” she said. Perhaps language is a barrier that is often difficult to get past, but the magic of a warm drink between the palms, a sip or two of elixir, and no words need be spoken; we can understand each other perfectly well.

Posted by butuki at 04:02 AM in Nature and Place | Permalink | Comments (4) Comments

Coffee shops have always been dear to me, it is one of the things I miss most where I live now. Search as I may, I have not found a comfortable coffee shop here in the West Nowhere. When I lived out in Chiba, I would spend a few nights a week in the local coffee shop. I did not have a proper phone in my apartments, so in order to send and receive email I had to use a local payphone. Once I downloaded my messages, I would move on to the coffee shop to read and reply while sipping on a nice warm bottomless cup of coffee. I would spend hours there a few times a week, and I think that I did some of my best writing there. Some days I would sit with a notebook instead of the computer, and jot notes, or sketch the other patrons. I really do miss those coffee shop days. It was just so simple, sitting there seemed to put everything in perspective, the stress melted away while I sipped the warm coffee and put my life into words…

Posted by Steve at November 1, 2003 09:28 AM

This is a moving story, and parts here make me quite uncomfortable about being an American. I have to remind myself I can’t take responsibility for 220 million people, who are just people, after all; I need to seek out the small communities, in person and online, where I can learn and, like you, find comfort. Good luck.

Posted by P at November 2, 2003 08:08 AM

I am honestly not trying to attack Americans here. It is just that most of the biggest events in my life occurred because of and around Americans, both good and bad. I simply very rarely experience such a tumultuous run of events and attitudes in the other places I’ve lived. I’ve never felt in danger for my life here in Japan or anywhere in Europe. Police have never spread-eagled me against a police car here nor has anyone ever threatened me with a gun anywhere else (both of which occurred in the Sates).

As to the good things… most of my close friends are in the States. My philosophy about nature and social justice originated in the States, from getting to know people who practiced this way of living. In its best form, American education is bold, inquisitive, and ground breaking… simply the best. And when Americans put the best of their hearts and minds into doing some good for the world, they really can have hearts of gold.

I myself am culturally and ethnically and family-wise in great part an American, and am trying here to speak with a different voice from the usual one, to make it clear that when someone speaks of and about America, it is not always the expected opinions and presumptions. I want to ask and look at hard questions that need to be answered and faced. This can only be done if one doesn’t shrink from looking at unpleasant and often ugly truths. It can only be done if individuals are willing to accept responsibility for their participation in the whole community.

It is not enough to always deny that an individual is not responsible for the entire population. If the hard questions are not solved by individuals, then who will start to ask them and try to do something about them? Who but those who, as individuals, ask the dissenting questions?

So often people commenting on my comments about America use the excuse, “But it wasn’t ME who caused the American government to attack Iraq!” Yes, of course not. But if, as Americans adore trumpeting all the time, you actually live in a so-called democracy, doesn’t it behoove each and every indivual to BEHAVE as if they are responsible? Americans ELECTED the damn president… they sure as hell can UNELECT him!

Posted by butuki at November 3, 2003 03:26 AM

This is wonderful, deeply personal writing, Butuki, thank you.

Posted by beth at November 12, 2003 09:50 AM

Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20031125045917/http://www.butuki.com/archives/2003_11.html

 

Coffee/house

By P.

My daughter and I are killing time at a secondhand table in the sunny storefront window of Mickey's Coffee Bar in Cleveland Heights. We have walked all the way up from home, via the library -- a hike for even a sturdy 5-year-old -- and juice and coffee, or juice and carrot cake and coffee, are an important part of the program

Mickey's is, or was, an independent coffeehouse. It is now the Phoenix, really, and one of several, but I think of it as Mickey's, in honor of the first owner, who built the long, ornate, oaken bar and hung rare posters for obscure movies along the walls.

I spent quite a bit of time in Mickey's before my daughter was born, and I remember some of those posters clearly, even though I am not a movie fan: "THE MEXICAN SPITFIRE SEES A GHOST" and "THE KID FROM CLEVELAND," and a dozen more. Perhaps they helped to finance the change of ownership, for now the posters have to do with French countryside, as accessed via the "chemins de fer d'etat du sud."

Mickey's also boasted a logo I loved for its muscular obscurity, wherein a robust man with a bushy mustache toasted the dawn with a dump truck and an industrial skyline beyond him. He wore a fez and something like a Nehru jacket. I guess his old-movie Turkish look said something about "coffee" and the industry beyond him might have suggested the coffee's strength. Deconstructing coffehouse symbols is most likely not a wise use of time.

Nowadays, the purple phoenix on the front window behind my daughter is a reference to the current owner having been involved with Cleveland's first coffehouse chain, Arabica, before it was a chain, and to his coffee roastery, which used to perfume the funky Coventry neighborhood. Then the roaster caught fire and a couple of buildings burned.

The roastery moved downtown, and since the fire, Coventry has stopped being funky, to the point of driving away hacky-sack players outside the former Arabica, which has closed. The funky action is moving to Lee Road, where Mickeys/the Phoenix is. Arabica is moving in. Starbucks, of course, has already arrived.

My daughter is uninterested in French travel posters. But she is not yet old enough to be bored by her parents, and demands a story. We have passed the time with several, in fact, some true and some made-up. She wants to hear how the vacuum cleaner was invented (God knows why), and I begin to tell her an anecdote I read once, but she has already begun to crawl under the table, with her feet in the air, and I know it's time to go.

She and I have been regulars for a couple of years. I haven't forgotten the first visit: The young woman at the counter, who had short black hair, a strikingly fair complexion, a whole carrillon of rings in her ears, and a stud through her eyebrow that I tried hard not to stare at. She thought the long-haired moppet peering gravely into the pastry case was utterly cute, but let me know with a withering look that I was superfluous, and perhaps unclean, even if I was the one with the wallet. Happily, I never saw her again.

After the incident with the chocolate milk, I think that is just as well. Later, the Phoenix's introduction of carrot cake sealed the relationship. Biscotti you can gnaw the icing from are all right, but carrot cake is the real deal where my daughter is concerned, and now every trip to the library comes with a plea to go to the coffeehouse.

I wish we had time to go more often. I am sure my wife does, too. I like to think Mickey's helps to anchor my daughter in space, as one of the landmarks she might forget but won't lose, like the walk up from home, past the hide-and-jump-out trees and her "old school" -- a preschool in a picturesque church -- along scary, busy Lee Road; to the library, where the computers have cool games; and to the climactic snack at Mickey's. I suppose it anchors me, too.

As we walk out, a woman remarks that she enjoyed eavesdropping on us. We were talking like adult friends, she said. I can hardly be troubled about about the eavesdropping, for when I'm alone in Mickey's, I do it, too.

Mildly pleased, I lead my daughter out, thinking to myself that what attaches me to places often isn't the place but the community in it.

Source: http://my.core.com/%7Epzicari/text/Coffee.html

 

In The Company of Coffee

By Notes from An Eclectic Mind

The following is my contribution to the Ecotone topic for November 1, Coffee Shop as Place.

Toward the end of the sprawling Texas epic Giant Rock Hudson takes his movie family including his Hispanic daughter-in-law and grandchildren into Sarges diner. The proprietor, an Ernest Borgnine look-alike with a no service policy toward non-whites, asks them all to leave and when Hudson refuses, Sarge kicks the crap out of him. Of course its a victory in defeat scene because until that moment Hudson had some pretty bigoted ideas toward those members of his family as well. But its always the diner that gets me, the quintessential small town Texas diner with the red booths, swivel stools at the counter, and a world-weary waitress. Ive walked into a thousand of those places and always theres the guy in dirty work clothes who takes a seat and says, Mabel, gimme a cup of black coffee.

Where I grew up coffee houses were perceived to be seamy pits playing host to throngs of bongo pounding beatniks stoned on mary-jew-juana cigarettes. Like a scene from the cautionary classic Reefer Madness, parents warned their college bound children to stay away from places like that. Since my favorite coffee quotation, a Turkish proverb, contends that, Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and as sweet as love, perhaps the stuff would give timorous parents pause.

The local caf in the Little Town keeps a pot of Joe hot at all times and throughout the long slow afternoons locals wander in to have a solitary cup or to join various klatsches. Those who dont partake of the black stuff order the house wine of the South, ice tea, so that the general air of having a place to take a load off and exchange some lies prevails for all. Ive never seen anyone at the back booth with a book and the once or twice I tried it, I couldnt read for the waitress asking me if anything was wrong. Staring into space over your cup is okay; reading is suspect, lonely person in public behavior.

Even when I went to college and became a dedicated coffee drinker expressly to make friends with a much-admired professor, I had not experienced the atmospheric side of the addiction. I started consuming gallons of the beverage to spend time with Dr. R. and wound up drinking it, through nine years of classes for a bachelors and masters, just to stay awake and working.

After I came to the Big City and hit a romantic pitfall, I began to frequent the coffee bar in a bookstore near my apartment. I was lonely and miserable and I could take my laptop, books, and journal there and feel as if I were with people. Good coffee houses are places where you can be both known and unknown. The bar tenders make your drink appropriately and leave you alone to engage in a kind of removed public cordiality set at a distance from the real commitment of an attachment. They know your name and your sweetener of choice but none of the sour details of your reality.

But bar tenders also have an ability to know when youre reaching your limit, when youre not drinking to be cordial, but out of a quiet desperation. Yes, you can drink coffee the same way you can drink booze, to excess, until your hands shake when you dont get it and your eyes retreat into black circles in your head. I remember well the afternoon when the coffee bar sat deserted and I knocked back cup after cup, writing obsessively in my journal until a hand entered my field of vision, plucked the pen away, and grasped my fingers. I looked up into the face of a stranger with whom I traded jokes every day and she said, Tell me whats wrong. My eyes filled with tears and I said, My Dad died.

When I moved to my condo I began to hang out at the Starbucks around the corner. It hadnt been open a week when I first went in, so Im a part of the history of that store, one of the old-time regulars who sigh when we have to break in a new barista and glare at the walk-ins when they behave rudely toward our kids. Before R.s stroke I used to spend long afternoons at my favorite table availing myself of the wireless Internet access to do my work in public rather than turn into one of those Gollum-esque geeks who seldom sees the light of day and clings to her laptop lisping, My precious. Nasty little humanses. Dont touch the precious.

The store manager used to put Billie Holliday CDs on just for me and wouldnt let me have more than four shots of espresso a day. I could stretch them out over any kind of drinks I wanted, but after four I had to switch to decaf. The best afternoons were during rainstorms or cold fronts when I could sit there dry and warm with a steaming cup in my hand and watch sheets of rain drench the parking lot. Of all the changes that have come into my life since I became a full-time caregiver, I miss those coffee house afternoons most of all.

Coffee and my personal evolution seem to run on a parallel course. When I look back to the Little Town diner of my youth I see an adolescent Rana who carried a particular set of angsty baggage. The girl at college and in graduate school toted different luggage, funkier than the psychological Samsonites of her youth but no less heavy. Only the woman who built web pages, listened to the blues, and had a limit had begun to travel a bit lighter. I evolved from bitter cups of pure acrid blackness to smooth, tall glasses of latte laced with vanilla, meant to be slowly consumed in a winding down of the system rather than knocked back like rot gut to jump start the nerves into action.

Now I am a kind of elder statesman of the coffee house, the funny, good-natured regular who shows up every day, tips well, and learns the baristas names. Ive never seen a single bongo drum in any coffee house Ive frequented though Ill take the Fifth on the availability of the mary-jew-juana. This morning when I popped over to the website for the regional newspaper, the one that tells me if anyone has expired in the Little Town, the front page headline declared, Starbucks opening perks up coffee lovers. In the accompanying photo of a young woman looking down at her book the caption read, E.C. (left) spends Friday morning writing and reading at Starbucks, located at the intersection of S. Way and Avenue N. You know, I just love the coffeehouse feel, C. said. Yes, we do know.

Posted by Rana at November 1, 2003 11:04 AM

Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20031206062546/http://www.ranablog.com/archives/000527.php

 

The Three O'Clock Cookie Run

By Feathers of Hope (Numenius)

A note for the Ecotone Wiki topic on Coffee Shop As Place

Not far from the building where I work is the main student center on campus, housing the bookstore and the student-run eatery (supposedly the largest restaurant in Northern California). I always get my lunch from there -- the food is cheap and wholesome. Students being students, their newfound coffee habit well nourished by too many all-nighters, naturally there is a place to pick up a mocha during a five-minute run between classes. There is no place to sit down in this little coffeeshop, and people who want to settle into their coffees often sit on the tables and chairs just outside the MemU. Because no one lingers, this coffeeshop doesn't seem to have much of a sense of place, though I'm sure it does to the student workers there.

Myself, I'm not a coffee drinker, but the coffeeshop is my destination for the usual mid-afternoon baked good run. Most often a cookie, but if I'm lucky they have blueberry muffins. Bakeries as place -- now there's a topic.

Posted by Numenius at November 1, 2003 09:35 PM

Comments

I usually don't drink coffee now, either. Usually it's cocoa or chai now. But coffee shops are still wonderful places to spend time in. Too bad there are almost no teahouses in the States, though. That's another great place to go.

Posted by: Miguel at November 2, 2003 06:08 AM Source: http://www.magpienest.org/feathersofhope/archives/2003/11/01/the_three_oclock.html

 

Coffeeshops

By Conscientious

[This entry is also a contribution to the Ecotone Wikipedia - "Coffee Shop as Place"]

For a while now, a recurring theme of my life has been to realize all the things I miss about Germany, things that I didn't notice while I was living there or, more accurately, discomfortably living there.

Germany is not famous for its coffeeshops. France might be, or Italy, or Austria, especially Vienna. Yet I miss German coffeeshops a lot. OK, I have a problem here already. Let me call them cafés to get a little bit closer to what they are or, in this case, what they're not. Unlike most of the coffeeshops in the US, their prime purpose is not to sell something. They're more like restaurants. Of course, you pay for the coffee but most of them don't sell coffee in packages. And they don't sell crappy easy listening CDs or other overpriced nonsense. If you want to buy coffee you'd go to a shop that sells coffee.

If, however, you want to go to a public place and drink a coffee while chatting with friends, reading a book or doing nothing you go to a café. You don't even necessarily go there for the coffee, you go for the atmosphere. By atmosphere I mean what's so sorely lacking when you go into pretty much any coffeeshop here. There just isn't any. Big chains are driving smaller places out of business and everything looks pretty much the same. The only chance to find anything decent is where there are lots of students. But even then, it's just not the same.

In the US, not too many people seem to like the idea of doing nothing. It's almost like you always have to do something here and, extrapolated from that, your work has a completely different meaning. It's something many people use to define themselves. You simply don't find that to this extent in Germany. People there are quite happy with doing nothing. Or, to be more precise, happy with going to a café and looking as if they were doing nothing whereas, in fact, they are doing something, namely having a good time. Thing is you can have a good time doing nothing other than sitting in a café, drinking coffee and reading, say. I don't think you'd find too many cafés in Germany where there are tons of people with laptops. I mean a café is not some sort of public library that serves coffee.

People also are allowed to smoke in cafés in Germany. I don't smoke myself but I will admit that usually, cafés in which people smoke have more atmosphere than cafés where people aren't allowed to smoke. Not that there are that many of the latter anyway. That's another one of those differences, btw. People here are obsessed about how bad smoking is while, at the same time, eating food that basically has no nutritional value. Yes, you do get cancer from smoking. But you also ruin your health quite effectively by eating no vegetables, say, and eating meat from animals that are treated with hormones and antibiotics. Plus, you don't get cancer from going to a café every once in a while. Actually, you might. But you also might get cancer from all the other stuff that gets into your food and that is definitely not designed for human consumption. Did anybody say genetically modified food?

Anyway, there's also this thing about service. When you go to a café in Germany it might happen that you'll have a hard time hailing down a waiter. They just won't come and, God forbid, they're not say anything like "Hello, my name is Günther and I'm your waiter today. How may I help you?" They also don't bring you your check when you've just started drinking your coffee. There isn't anything that can destroy a nice atmosphere - provided there is any - more effectively than that check on the table. "Whenever you're ready" - well, let me decide when I'm ready. I don't even want to see that check before I leave because, you know, usually I think about paying when I'm ready to leave and not a long time beforehand. A café is no fast-food joint. Things take time. That's the idea.

And if the café is crowded that's even better. You don't make people leave because other people might be waiting or coming in. You don't put their tab on the table. Usually, in Germany, people don't wait for a table to clear up anyway. If Germans hate anything it's waiting. If the café is too crowded you go elseplace. And café owners know that. Having a crowded café is a good thing. If people can't find a table that's even better. A It's-hard-to find-a-table-there café is a good café. People come back, people stay.

It's actually one of the things I really dislike, in principle: A crowded smoky place filled with people. If it's a café, though, that's it. I'll sit down and stay. I miss that tremendeously, living in the US.

Posted by Joerg Colberg at November 2, 2003 05:33 PM

Comments

Suprised you didn't mention how hard it is to get a "latte to go" in Germany. I love that. You actually have to take the time to sit down and drink your coffee, with or without friends. There is no getting coffee to go. No drinking coffee while you are walking around in the bookstore or in the grocrery store. In Germany you drink it the civilized way - in a proper cup, with friends. PS. Have loved your site for ever. Thank you.

Posted by: Mary Thull on November 2, 2003 10:42 PM

There's no "to go" usually. Why to go? There always is enough time to drink a coffee. If you don't have the time to drink your coffee you don't deserve one, right? ;-)

I think that's one of those very big cultural differences between continental Europe and the US: In Europe, eating food is part of your life and not some inconvenience that takes up the valuable time you rather spend doing work (or sitting in traffic).

In Germany, work in an inconvenience and to this date, people who define themselves mainly through their work are being looked at as if they had some sort of psychological problem. So if people say the problem with Germany is that people put in so few hours they're missing all those aspects besides "the economy" that mean a lot. At least that's how Germans view life.

PS: Thanks for stopping by! I'm glad you enjoy the site.

Posted by: Joerg on November 3, 2003 11:15 AM

Hello,

I have been living out of Germany for almost nine years now (London and currently Tokyo). I have to say that often when people ask me "what is this-and-that like in Germany" I often don't know. I will say "well, back in the early 90s it was such-and-such, but don't just take my word for it." Especially in Japan, that surprises people. One's nationality doesn't give you authority on cultural matters and all that.

Anyway, your post gave me a little glimpse how things are like back home. It now seems exotic to me too. I think I got a little to anglosized over time, for lack of a word. Oh, and UK is certainly not included in your definition of Europe. People there see eating as a necessity which you should not spend much time and especially money on. In Japan, this is fortunately rather different, and people love to meet up for long conversations, even if it is in a fast food joint. In fact many students study in so-called family restaurants.

Thanks for the post & all the best.

Dirk

Posted by: Dirk on November 3, 2003 08:54 PM

It's interesting how we (USA and Europe) seem to be so different on our attitudes about work.

Posted by: bill on November 5, 2003 08:57 AM Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20031230213738/http://www.jmcolberg.com/weblog/archives/000650.html

 

coffee shop

By prairie point

It’s possible I am the last man in America never to have set foot in a Starbucks. It’s certainly not for want of availability since, according to their website, they have 22 stores within five miles of my home, two within walking distance. I would be tempted to say that it’s my disdain for chain stores, were it not for the fact that I actually may have never been in any kind of establishment that could properly be called a coffee shop.

Apparently they do not fill any need that I have recognized yet. I should point out here that I do not even drink coffee regularly any more. Some years ago I gave up Bustelo and switched to Earl Grey as the delivery system for my morning fix of hot caffeine. Though I still order coffee when I take breakfast away from home, as I often do on Saturday mornings or when traveling.

From what others have written though it is my impression that coffee shops are not so much about imbibing hot java but are apparently some kind of place to hang out in public either alone or with others. In my travels on the backroads of Texas I have found that most small towns have a café or a diner where locals gather during the day to take a break and linger over a cup of coffee or two. If you live there it’s usually a good spot to catch up on the latest gossip or if you are just passing through it is a good spot to get a feel for the place. My best guess is that the coffee shop is kind of a big-city version of this for people who either don’t have jobs or else have jobs that don’t confine them to an office.

It’s been years since I was able to spend time like that doing nothing. Back in my college days I would often head over to the student center to get coffee in the evenings, partly to keep from falling asleep in the library but mainly in the hope of finding any kind of diversion that would prevent me from studying. That is probably the closest that I have come to experiencing what a coffee shop is like.

The coffee at the student center tasted like weak dishwater. After college I spent a winter in Chicago and that is where I really learned to experience coffee. I spent time there with a group of students from the Art Institute, and one of them knew how to brew coffee in an hourglass-shaped contraption. It screwed apart into three sections. She would pack the coffee into the middle section and put water in the bottom and then set it on the stove. Somehow the water would get sucked up into the top section when it was done. That was the best coffee I’ve ever had. It was strong and you needed it to fortify yourself before heading for the El in the bitter cold.

Michael Pollan wrote in an article recently that the modern coffee break actually started early in the last century as a “booze break.” Only during prohibition did it turn into a break for coffee. I find that interesting because the other thing I keep thinking about is how much what I hear about coffee shops reminds me of a bar.

Read what others have to say about Coffee Houses at Ecotone.

Posted by Bill Hopkins on November 1, 2003 04:01 PM

Comments

Well here in the Seattle area, it is considered an abomination if you don't drink coffee. There are "starbucks" everywhere, and every othere kind of coffee company too. Espresso stands on every corner, drive thrus every where. It is really hard to NOT drink it.

I went from weak dishwater, to french roast and I have to have it before I can function.

I do LOVE a good Earl grey Cuppa though!! especially when I'm tired achey and cold.

Posted by: Mary Lou at November 3, 2003 11:42 AM

I've been in a Barnes and Noble cafe where they ~serve~ Starbuck's coffee, but they tell me that it's not really a Starbuck's.

Posted by: Joel at November 3, 2003 03:36 PM

You're describing a "machinetto," -- at least that's what my wife's mother called it. We had one for years, till one day it refused to unscrew for a new charge of water and espresso. I liked the thing not only for the strong coffee it made but for its cleverness: when the water in the bottom comes to a boil, steam pressure forces almost all of it up through the coffee grounds and out, very quickly, as coffee. And there was the element of dangerous old-world technology to it. Theoretically, if you somehow clogged the outlet, you could make it blow up. I never let that bother me. But as I became a volume coffee-drinker, I realized the machinetto's down side was that it wasn't very big.

You can still buy them here and there.

Posted by: P. at November 4, 2003 06:52 PM

I didn't know about the origins of the coffee break being a break for booze.... You are right, there is quite a bit of that expectation of better times associated with booze that is there in a coffee bar too.

Posted by: maria at November 5, 2003 09:40 AM

i'm indifferent towards coffee -- i'll drink it if it's put in front of me but i don't go out of my way for it. my husband, on the other hand, can't function without his morning "fix".

as far as i'm concerned the best thing about starbucks is free coffee grounds for my compost pile! i'll buy a cup of something in return for bags of grounds :-)

Posted by: erica at November 8, 2003 02:54 PM

Well, Bill... I'm with you on the small island of folks who have never set foot in a starbucks. AND, while agree that there is a certain something about those small town cafes (I live in Lincoln Nebraska, so know plenty of 'em), we here in Lincoln are blessed with several INDEPENDENTLY OWNED Coffee shops who ROAST their own coffees-- YUM! The only starbucks that I know even exists in Lincoln is at the airport! Yeah, I might live in a bland, modest midwest city... but at least I don't have to suffocate in mass-produced product.
(Okay, I'll get off my high horse now!) :)

Posted by: jen at November 11, 2003 01:33 PM

 

Coffee Houses

By Feathers of Hope (Pica)

Another joint Ecotone entry; this one is on Coffee House as Place.

I remember the first time I entered a Starbucks. It was on Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge, Mass., and what seemed so different about it was how people seemed encouraged to linger: to buy only one overpriced cup of designer coffee but then to sit there all morning. It was almost opposite Harvard Law School and I suspect most of its clientele were law students, choosing a study environment that would never, ever work for me. But I liked it that they weren't chased out. I ordered tea.

Since those days, Starbucks has covered the globe in much the same way MacDonald's has, and its cookie-cutter designs render it identical in Cambridge or Davis or London. I avoid it, especially since I stopped drinking coffee many years ago. Yet there are several coffee shops here in Davis: Common Grounds, Mishka's, Espresso Roma, Cafe Roma, Chamonix--that offer a similar "we won't chase you out of here even though you've only spent $2.65" message. Many of them offer free wireless internet as well (unlike Starbucks, where you have to pay). Cafe Roma features poetry slams and concerts; Common Grounds has book readings and political gatherings.

For a drink that seems to load people up with an energy that leads to the shakes, it's a civilized antidote, this relaxed notion of how long you can stay. I like it. I can't give any kind of critique of the quality of the coffee, but each of these havens has its own defining sense of place. Appealing to neo-hippies, Euro-wannabes, or aging grungers, the coffee houses become an extension of the people who sit in them for hours. Even when they're almost empty, it's easy to tell if you'd fit in or not.

Posted by Pica at November 2, 2003 08:52 PM

Source: http://www.magpienest.org/feathersofhope/archives/2003/11/02/coffee_houses.html

 

Coffee shop as place

By frizzyLogic (qB)

(For Ecotone)

Long ago and far away I was going to write a book about coffee. Swimming in the wake of Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World, my coffee progeny was to join the gigantic spawning of "take an object and do a timeline" small volumes of populist history.

There are a number of reasons why my contribution to the remaindered piles never materialised. One was that I'd never written anything longer than a letter of complaint to the local bus garage (although it was quite lengthy, and the prose style racy); another was my being seven months pregnant when the thought occurred to me; the clincher was the fact that someone else had already done it. Or at least most of it.

In the few weeks between the birth of the idea and the birth of the baby I had managed to do a little research on coffee. It's a fascinating subject but is probably too huge to cram into one cod-like book. The aspect most interesting to me was the history of coffee shops. I had known vaguely that they'd been rather important in the past, but even a brief potted history hints at the excitement:

...during the 17th and 18th centuries, there were more coffee shops in London than there are today. Coffee shops were nothing like the trendy shops that we have today. A true coffeehouse was crowded, smelly, noisy, feisty, smoky, celebrated and condemned. On the street in London you located the nearby coffeehouse by sniffing the air for roasting beans, or by looking for a wooden sign shaped to resemble a Turkish coffee pot.

It was the coffeehouses of England that started the custom of tipping waiters and waitresses. People who wanted good service and better seating would put some money in a tin labelled "To Insure Prompt Service" - hence "TIPS".

Coffee shops then were influential places, used extensively by artists, intellectuals, merchants, bankers and a forum for political activities and developments. When they became popular in England, the coffee houses were dubbed "penny universities". It was said that in a coffee house a man could "pick up more useful knowledge than by applying himself to his books for a whole month". A penny was the price of a coffee....

In 1674 The Women's Petition Against Coffee was set up in London. Women complained that men were never to be found at home during times of domestic crises, since they were always enjoying themselves in the coffee houses. They circulated a petition protesting "the grand inconveniences accruing to their sex from the excessive use of the drying and enfeebling liquor". A year later, King Charles II tries to supress the coffee houses because they were regarded as hotbeds of revolution but his proclamation is revoked after a huge public outcry and the ban lasts just 11 days.

Some of the coffee houses in London became very well known with different groups of workers and soon became the kingpins around which the capital's social, political and commercial life revolved. Jonathan's Coffee House in Change Alley was where stockbrokers usually met - it eventually became the London Stock Exchange. Likewise, ship owners and marine insurance brokers visited Edward Lloyd's Coffee House in Lombard Street - it too moved on and up in the world and became the centre of world insurance and the headquarters of Lloyds of London.

And that's just London. Thinking about it, I realised that, with apologies to Mr Prufrock, I could measure out my life with coffee shops.

Prior to my teens coffee was copious but instant and drunk at home. Then I went out into the world and swallowed the bitterness of pride. I was in Italy, visiting relations. We went out shopping in the small provincial town where they lived. "Let's have a coffee" my cousin said, and we staggered with our bags of meat and vegetables to her favourite espresso bar. "Do you drink coffee like this in England?" she inquired as I told her I would like a double espresso, "it's very, very strong... would you prefer a cappuccino?" "No, really, I love strong coffee" I said, with determination. I am stronger than strong coffee. I will not admit to doubt. I can do it. I can look after myself. I know best.

When it came it was small, viscous, black and of a strength and bitterness I cannot even begin to describe. I had to drink it, of course. My tongue and the interior of my mouth shrivelled and collapsed in on themselves. Everything disappeared - the tall, small-topped round table at which we stood, the heavy bags of shopping between our feet, the loud chattering of the packed lunchtime crowd. The world was reduced to the black and white of the coffee and the cup and my implacability. When I had finished it my cousin called for a glass of water and watched silently as I re-hydrated my vocal chords.

Roll on a few years. There have been coffee shops along the way - the one in Venice, Florian or Quadri, I can't remember which, where my brother and I sneaked away from our parents and learnt all we were going to know of each other's nearing adult selves before he died; in London the ersatz frills in the cafe where the waitresses wore lace-trimmed aprons and mob-caps and my mother tricked me into meeting her lover.

The next coffee shop was in an African city. It was run by Ethiopians and the customers were entirely ex-patriots. The prices were far too high for residents to afford. There were chairs and tables inside, and a few outside on a little verandah with an elevated view of an enormous car park. I had never trusted the hot chocolate since a child I had taken there for a treat found the corpse of a cockroach the size of squash ball in the bottom of his mug. The coffee was made in an imported gaggia machine (the Ethiopians had good Italian connections) and I figured any unwanted Blattodean would be blasted into smithereens and sterilised by the steam.

I went often to this coffee shop, almost always alone. I was also intensely lonely. On the night in question I sat on the verandah watching the cars coming and going while the meagre froth collapsed on my cappuccino. I had just discovered that my highly part-time lover was seeing not one, but three other people. Which went some way to explain the infrequency with which we saw each other, and a long way to explain my state of mind that evening. I wasn't crying. I had forced myself into a public place in order not to cry. But I was bereft.

The only other customer that night was also sitting on the verandah. I knew him, vaguely. I knew he was a playwright and actor, but not really very notable at either. I had heard the usual incestuous-community-driven tittle-tattle about divorce and alcoholism, now overcome, but you never know do you. I sat, ignoring him and ignoring my coffee, facing the car park, letting the random and meaningless movements of the cars pass across my field of vision. Eventually he cleared his throat and leaned across the small gap between our tables. "Excuse me, I know it's none of my business, and do forgive me, but you look so very very sad, you look as though you have just had your heart broken. And I wanted to say that although the pain is terrible, it does go away, eventually."

I stared at this man in disbelief. This person who had had the temerity to think they might know me or understand me in some way. To wave at the battlements and endanger the fortifications. "I'm sorry, I have no idea what you're talking about. I have to go now."

More years, more coffee shops. The one where, having just bought my first mobile phone and programmed it to play "Mary had a little lamb", I listened in disbelief as a mobile rang with exactly the same tune. Astonishing. But why didn't the owner answer it? the noise was terrible, the tune unbearable, and it just went on and on. Only when every other customer there was staring at me did I realise the phone ringing was mine.

And so to the coffee shop opposite work a few months ago. I had to meet my boss to discuss returning after many months off sick. I wasn't choosing to go back to work, but my money was about to disappear. It was summer but I was wearing an enormous thick jumper because I was so cold. He bought me a double espresso and a glass of water. I held on to the glass as a way of holding things together until I noticed the trembling of my hand was setting up concentric rings on the surface.

He was kind, very kind. "How would you like to do this?" he asked. "I don't know," I replied. "I just know I can't do it by myself."

Posted by qB at November 3, 2003 05:15 PM

Comments

A wonderful post. The more I read about what you've been through, the more I realize how gutsy you are. May your coffee always be just the way you like it.

(I trust you won't take it amiss if I point out that the "tips" etymology is total nonsense? The origin of "tip" in the sense 'gratuity' is not clear, but it's certainly not an acronym.)

Posted by: language hat at November 4, 2003 06:06 PM

I don't take the "tips" tip amiss at all, I relish it! I just hope the rest of the information isn't similarly baseless, but I do know the women's demo is true.

Posted by: qB at November 4, 2003 06:28 PM

Ooh yes, I liked this post. And I don't even drink coffee!

Posted by: Anne at November 5, 2003 02:25 AM

Source: http://www.frizzylogic.org/archives/000344.html

 

double espresso

By alembic

This post is my response to ecotone's biweekly topic: coffee shop as place.

Family legend has it that my great-grandmother used to run a coffee house in Budapest. As the story goes, she was a formidable woman who did not take to fools kindly. Perhaps it was all that caffeine that made her run the lives of her four daughters like a business, while she babied her coffee house. As for my great-grandfather, he seems to have disappeared from everyones memory, faded into oblivion, much like a coffee stain thats been ground into the patterns of dirt in a well-trodden floor.

I am probably embellishing here, for I have little to go on, but I tell you, there is something of that womans love for the dark brew in my own blood. I remember my first taste of coffee. I must have hounded my parents -- at least that is how I would like to remember it -- until they relented, threw their hands up in the air, and with a resigned sigh, a long Hungarian ach, they dipped a sparkling white sugar cube into the black pool of the fine Rosenthal china cup, the one adorned with a garland of blue cornflowers -- which I still have, safely packed away in depths of some cupboard or other.

Unlike the speaker of the Poem of Darkness, quoted by qB in her post on Hungarian pessimism, I found in my sugar cube soaked in black coffee not the bitter brew of the cruelty of time, but the promise of better times to come -- a sweet nectar that could, eventually, draw the bees of possibility to me.

That first taste of coffee, like my great-grandmothers mythical coffee house, is a place in memory now. In that place of memory, where so little changes, the coffee is always the perfect temperature and bitterness is always tempered by the sugar of promise.

Nowadays, I sweeten my occasional coffee shop coffee with whatever sugar substitute happens to be on hand at my local branch of Peets, the Bay Areas answer to Starbucks. At this particular Peets in the Greenbrae (as in all other branches, I imagine), commuters line up in the early morning hours to get their bucket-sized lattes to last for the road into the city. Later, once the sun is up, the stay-at-home moms appear, dressed in their workout gear. I dont go much to Peets when this crowd is there. Though seeing them and hearing their laughter erupt in small waves does make my heart race a bit faster, like a jolt of caffeine, there are not enough sugar substitutes to take away the bitter aftertaste of my memories of high school -- but thats another subject.

I tend to frequent my neighborhood Peets mid-afternoon, when I sometimes end a small trek through the hills there or, after a long day of work, I need a shot of caffeine that can only be delivered by a double espresso. At these times, I am always greeted if not by the voice, at least by the face of someone familiar, a regular or two who has been as much a permanent fixture of this Peets as Peets has been in the shopping center.

• the man in his seventies, most likely, wearing biker shorts and an inordinate number of athletic gadgets to support his knees or ankles, as if these were badges, a proof of bravery in some war or other
• the old, tiny couple, like dolls with heads made out of dried apples, he silent, as if trapped in that senseless world of dementia, and she, smiling like a twelve year old and jabbering away at any and all about the state of her health ... so that by the time you spend two minutes with her, you wonder which one of them is the one out of touch
• the woman, who was born in Romania in some distant, almost mythical time, and is now old and as thin as a rake, but she is always dressed to the nines in some fantastic preppy style, in swaths of plaid or camel hair, her porcelain white skin stretched over her high cheek bones, the rest pleated near the jaw, giving away her age, and her head framed by a halo of fine hair one imagines the property of angels

When the weather is good, which is pretty much most of the time in our part of California, I take my brew outside and sit at one of the bolted down metal tables in the company of pigeons and starlings that act like true Maranites, strutting about between the chairs and up on the tables, squawking and demanding their share of crumbs from the muffins, cookies, and pastries, as if they were entitled to it.

Posted by maria at November 04, 2003 06:06 PM

Comments

i feel like this post gave a very clear picture of Peet's. although i have never looked inside the local Starbuck's, this is very close to what i imagined it to be like.

Posted by: bill on November 5, 2003 06:21 AM

Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20040128135648/http://www.ashladle.org/archives/000238.html

 

One more cup of coffee for the road

By Guild of Ghostwriters

I think the only cause of disappointment is expectation but it doesn't stop me expecting. I had hoped rather than expected that yesterday's little private screening would trigger something - I'm not sure what. 'Closure' seems such a naff and inappropriate word right now. In practical terms I suppose I had deluded myself that once the id parade was out of the way I would burst forth with NaNoWriMo activity but I haven't. My NaNo remains stuck on less than 1,500 words of shameless padding. And it can stay there for all the enthusiasm I can muster right now. I don't feel blocked though - I keep writing blogs for one thing. I just don't feel bursting with 48,600 plotless words. I do feel like writing about Coffee Shops - I'm not sure if I qualify as a blog about place but I have spent a lot of my waking adult life in coffee shops.

I can't remember coffee or coffee shops meaning much to me before 1991 - during that Summer I toured Europe and experienced my first proper espresso in Udine. When I got back I noticed Costa Coffee in Nottingham's Victoria Centre and that became my first coffee haunt. I'd sit there alone with a notebook, an espresso and some kind of cake with a soft, dark chocolate heart - or sometimes with Number 66, a civil service colleague (we taxed the dead rich - or the rich dead if you prefer) and friend. It immediately established the main functions of a coffee shop in my life:

1) a place to roll and smoke cigarettes
2) a place for people watching
3) a place for work/job avoidance (and later avoidance generally)

All I remember about Costa now is that it introduced me to the Gaggia - they used one and sold others and I've coveted one ever since. Generally nowadays I avoid coffee shop chains if I have a choice.

My next coffee haunt is/was a capuccino counter in the Victoria Centre Market. Owned by Peter, a Sicilian, and staffed by Ahmet from Iraq. Off work with depression, I spent weeks on end there chugging down Capuccinos. In the end economics moved me on - Peter's Capuccinos were a quid a cup, Broadway's bottomless coffees cost something like 1.20 and lasted all day - well, until 5pm anyway. Regardless of the economic reasons for moving on, Broadway became my favourte coffee haunt and the one where I most felt a sense of belonging in that cheesy Cheers' everybody knows your name sense. It felt like a hub of arty activity in Nottingham at the time. Common as Muck writer Billy Ivory had an office nearby and was often in and out, his big Ducatti parked next to my ever-present Vespa out front. Shane Meadows and his actors were often around - I remember chatting with one of the waiters about Meadows' film 24/7, which I had just seen, only to find out later that he was in the film (sorry Johann!). I also remember scootering away from the place with the shakes after 5 pints of coffee and no food. Eventually I moved away from Nottingham and Broadway got renovated. I think Number 66 still patronises the joint though, when he has coin to spare.

I have never managed to find a proper coffee haunt in Doncaster. Eating Whole is pleasant but lacks coffee options and, like Escorama (which has coffee options aplenty), opportunity to people watch. Both are pleasant enough places but not ones I'd ever go to out of unhealthy compulsion. So my latest coffee haunt is not in Doncaster but Oxford - the Cock and Camel near Gloucester Green. Oxford is an inaccessiblly expensive place. I invariably felt grubby just by virtue of being working class and having a northern accent. At first the Cock and Camel looked like another shiny, exclusive, expensive place but it was actually as close to proletarian as the centre of Oxford gets. The staff were a frequently changing bunch of overseas students who felt as underclass as we did and the coffee was as cheap as we found without leaving town. I could people watch for England, my young mate Danny (22) could get off with the waitresses and our mate Simon (40) could write his essays undisturbed.

These days I don't need a place to roll cigarettes and not smoking can make sitting drinking coffee a strangely incomplete experience. One coffee place worth a mention is a mobile one that parks up in front of Doncaster College. Proper espresso is served from the specially adapted back of a three wheeled Vespa van. I don't want to drink there so much as I want to ride away on it in the direction of the sunset.

Posted by Ghostwriter Number 96 at November 5, 2003 06:17 PM

Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20031207013935/http://www.guildofghostwriters.com/archives/000062.html

 

Near my apartment is a little district of coffee shops...

By Rachel

Near my apartment is a little district of coffee shops, yoga studio, upscale grocery and crafts boutiques. Trees and old houses abound, and dogs, and people in Birkenstocks. When I ride my bike here or walk to the grocery, there are always people sitting outside one or the other, often with dogs, reading the paper, sipping drinks, and chatting.

Also near my apartment is another sort of neighborhood, one in which Hispanic families cluster outside small stores, play on the sidewalks, and stroll in the evening.

On the surface, they seem very different places, and the homes of very different people, but shaping both is the urge to be part of a community, to be out and be seen, to be in the presence of others instead of alone.

 

Tea Rooms

By London and the North

Tea Rooms as Place (- should be Coffee Shop as Place - topic of the fortnight at Ecotone!)

Whatever a person might think about Jackie Mason's humour (it can be quite offensive) he understands something about some Jew's priorities. He tells a story about a man being asked about his first ever trip to Europe. "Have you been to Vienna?" he asks his friend back. "The cake! The cake! Sensational. To die for. Oy, the cake!"

Living in Hackney was positively extending socially and culturally after Harrogate. I leant about caffs and street markets, Merlot, chicken bricks, garlic, Elizabeth David and the differences between African and Asian people. But after I moved to a squat in Swiss Cottage in 1978, I so enjoyed my Kaffee und Kuchen at Louis' patisserie on the Finchley Road. A well orchestrated shop window showing off it's stunning variety of cakes. What did I used to have? Hmm. Apple strudel perhaps. Strange that I can't remember. I'm sure I had a favourite. It's changed now. The Finchley Road is a different creature. Not the same degree of Austro-German-Hungarian accents with similarly accented shopping bags. A couple of weeks ago I went into Cafe Mozart at the bottom of Swains Lane in Hampstead. Oy, the cakes! The cakes! To die for. Apfeltorte, pflaumkuchen, poppy seed cake, lemon sponge, almond whatevers..... It was like coming home. A great Gugelhopf of an encounter. I bought more than any of us could eat and felt a desperate need to stock up on essential items. (A car full of bread?) Heaven. The coffee, was okay maybe. I know I should remember. But under the circumstances - I don't remember anything else.

Now the Fat Rascals of Betty's are Paris' favourite. Personally I go there for the cinamon toast - cut into thin soldiers piled crossways. The Morrocan Mint Tea is wonderful but does not really go with cinamon toast though I will insist on ordering this combination. The first time I ever went to Betty's I must have been about eight. My Nana took me. For lunch. On the menu there was something quite extraordinary - Hors D'Oeuvres which I read aloud no doubt pronouncing the s's to make a quite unlikely sounding meal. Which I ordered. I can still see the small piles on the plate of grated carrot, potato salad, cole slaw and - not sure what else. That must have been about as foreign as food got in those days. Both my grandmothers took me there on no more than four or so occasions in school holidays when they were looking after us.

When Betty's moved to it's current location I couldn't remember what the previous cafe in that building had been called. It came back to me when I chanted some of the history to Paris on our visits to Harrogate. "Next to Queen Victoria was Standings - deli downstairs, tea rooms and restaurant upstairs. Betty's was over there where Lloyds Bank now stands opposite the cenotaph and this was really the Imperial. Cafe downstairs, restaurant upstairs." (Virtual Tour) And then there was The Royal Baths, no longer serving the smelly-but-good-for-you-waters of this spa town but serving coffee to the piano playing of Clarry Wilson on the piano.

Paris and I went through a stage many years ago of frequenting caffs in east London and stocked up on cholestrol and nicotene. A caff is not a cafe. And a cafe is not a coffee shop. The cafes of my childhood were tea rooms. White tablecloths and silver services. Great cakes. And very quiet. Where children were expected to behave, adults talk in low voices and cakes consumed. No problem there.

It's not the same anymore - "coffee shops"! But the coffee is good. Mostly. Though not, in my opinion, at Starbucks. Read what Jackie Mason says about Starbucks.

Is this entry more about cake than coffee? The truth is they go together. They are inseparable. It's a cultural thing. I rest my case.

Posted by Coup de Vent at 06:59 PM | Comments (4)

Comments

Oh, I LOVED this entry. Yes, it's the cakes. And the coffee, but tea will do...for cake lovers. No coffee shop will ever compare to my grandmother making me tea when I got home from school and bringing down a tin box full of "biscuits" from England, especially those amazing cookies you can still get there (you probably know the ones) which are hard tea biscuits with an intense coofee-flavored glaze on top. And CDV, I also have a passion for cinnamon toast, cut in strips. My mom always made it for me, and now I make it when I need some comfort. But I've barely heard anyone else ever mention it!

Posted by beth at November 13, 2003 12:12 AM

The names of the German cakes and strudels evoked rich, rich memories of my childhood in germany, when my grandparents would take me and my brother round to the local cafe to have "zucker kuchen mit sahne", or "kirche kuchen" or the wonderful "pflaum kuchen" that you described. Just thinking about all the images makes my mouth water. I wonder if I will ever sit in such an atmosphere again, now that my grandparents are gone: the clinking teaspoons, the inquisitive banter of elderly women, the gentle bite of warm sugar's aroma, and the swirling storm of cream in a cup of steaming coffee...?

Posted by butuki at November 13, 2003 04:47 AM

CdV : the Cafe Mozart in Swains Lane, that's just up the road from me! Yes, the cakes, the cakes! But the coffee is so-so and in very small cups. Their Viennese coffee is also no match for the real thing as served in Vienna.

For an excellent cafe mocha, I recommend a little Italian place at the start of Carnaby St., around the corner from Gt.Marlborough St.

Posted by Natalie at November 14, 2003 11:37 PM

I saw Jackie Mason once. He was having afternoon tea in Fortnum and Masons. Seemed to be enjoying the cakes, but I'm not sure if he was drinking tea or coffee.

You brought back memories of the Finchley Road cafes of twenty years ago.... mmmmm.

I remember too seeing for the first time, in one of those cafes, the old women whose tattoos emerged from behind their sleeves as they reached forward for another piece of cake, for another refill of coffee.

Posted by qB at November 17, 2003 12:20 PM Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20031204014426/http://www.airenet.co.uk/alife/2003_11.html

 

Saturday, November 08, 2003

By CassandraPages

It looks like most of my readers have been very loyal during the serialized narrative about Gene Robinson’s consecration, but I thought a digression from religion and politics would be welcome (for me, too). So here is a response, very belatedly, to the

ECOTONE TOPIC for November 1, 2003: COFFEE SHOP AS PLACE

Back home, I don’t go to coffee shops. There aren’t many, to begin with, and those that exist fall into the categories of “self-consciously-hip-and-pretending-to-be-urban”, or “here-we-are-in-a-mall-looking-at-books-let’s-have-latte”. Neither appeals. I prefer the atmosphere of a greasy diner, actually, with truck drivers and lumbermen next to bikers and local sad-sacks, all downing their java in shoulder-to-shoulder silence at the long stainless-steel counter. I’d rather sit in the Polka Dot, next to the train tracks, writing and drinking coffee, than go to the hip joints with the rural yuppies and artsy types who seem so desperate to bring Boston and Manhattan to rural New England.

But when I’m here, in Montreal, I’m in a city filled with bistros and cafes, with bookstores-avec-espresso; upstairs aeries for people-watching and chic basements for warmth and escape; internet cafes; outdoor spots for rendezvous and long afternoons. No city in North America can claim better food, although most can claim better weather. So I have my choice, but I keep going back to one little lunch/breakfast/café in particular.

It doesn’t have a name, or at least I don’t know it. It’s near the internet place I used to use, and I went in the first time to have some coffee in the middle of the afternoon, and immediately saw that the food in the small, refrigerated display case was all Middle Eastern, and homemade. There was shish taouk, fresh falafel, and spinach piestudded with sesame; bread with fresh zatar; and an array of homemade vegetable salads: taboulleh, cauliflower, beet, carrot, lentil, beans and chick peas – un plat, trois choix. And there was baklava. Not many things, but good ones. The grey-haired proprietor, a man of 40 or 45, didn’t look Arab or Persian or Greek or Armenian; I decided finally he might be Turkish. I ordered a café au lait, and he made it for me, and set the white china cup and saucer on the counter. Then I realized I only had a $20. He looked – disgusted. I apologized, embarrassed. He took it, made change, and turned away.

I drank the coffee, which was delicious, at one of the small marble-top tables arranged along the windows, trying surreptitiously to watch him. He spoke several languages, but to the patrons, mainly French. He rarely smiled, and at one point engaged in a heated argument with a North African reading a newspaper, but then they both broke out laughing. I had finished and needed to leave, so I put my cup on the counter, said “shukran” and left, getting barely a nod.

The next day I brought J. there for lunch. We ate shish taouk, in paper-thin lavash lightly grilled after the sandwich was made – fantastic - and some of the salads. But that day a new wrinkle appeared: the proprietor’s wife. She was very young, with a lovely face, wearing grey pants and a matching long tunic and her head and shoulders wrapped in a white veil. She worked behind the counter and moved back and forth between the café and the kitchen while her husband waited on customers. She never looked at the men, but kept her eyes down. I immediately liked her and wondered about her, with not a little concern – where had she come from? What was her life like? Did they have children? Had she left her parents and family halfway around the world? Was she happy? There was a door on the far end of the café that opened onto a little garden with nice trees, but there were no tables out there for eating. I wondered if she went out there and sat when she had a moment; I hoped so.

I’ve been back a number of times, and the wife is rarely there, but when she is, she smiles shyly at me and acknowledges my feeble Arabic greetings and thanks. I’m so obviously non-Muslim, but I don’t want to offend, even though they must be used to it; I put on my sweater on hot days and check to see if too much skin is showing, which, of course, it always is. This time, after several months away, J. and I went in for lunch and coffee, and the proprietor nodded his head and gave a small smile of recognition. “I think it’s better when you’re with me,” I told J. The food was great, and the coffee even better.

I guess the thing that keeps us going back to such places is that we’re equally drawn by the quality of the food or drink, and the mutual untold story. Cafes are not bars where everything hangs out and personal stories run freely out of people’s over-lubricated minds. In cafes you see other habitués, and you wonder about them, but there is discretion and distance. (Matisse went to a café frequented by many other artists every day for years, and no one ever came to sit with him, so respectful were they of his air of private dignity – Francoise Gilot mentions that this actually hurt Matisse.) I want to discover the stories, but I won’t ask. I also want, I suppose, to become regular enough that perhaps they will wonder about me. It is a game, perhaps, a gentle human game of curiosity, hunger, thirst: all satiable for a moment, but bound, like us, to return tomorrow.

6:33 PM

Source: http://cassandrapages.blogspot.com/2003_11_02_cassandrapages_archive.html#106833442504218113
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