Needed: Old Fashioned Coffee Shop
September 23, 2008 by Marye Audet
Filed under Coffee
I miss coffee shops.
I am not talking about places where you go to have something that vaguely resembles coffee but is more like an expensive dessert in a French restaurant…I am talking about coffee shops. The place that you went to find out what the winter would be like, who had had a baby, whose cows had gotten out, and what the price of hay was likely to be next spring.
Coffee shops.
They served donuts and coffee, eggs and toast and coffee and even biscuits, gravy, and coffee in the morning starting at about 5 a.m. In the afternoon you could count on them to have a good, thick slice of pie to serve you with your…coffee.
The coffee itself was wretched. Three glass pots with scorched coffee sitting on a Bunn Commercial coffee pot provided all the caffeine anyone could want. Because it was never about the coffee anyway. It was about the people.
I am pensive tonight I suppose. Too many hormones, not enough coffee, too much stress…your choice. But I think what we need is a good, old fashioned coffee shop.
You go into coffee bars now and people don’t interact. They work on their laptops while sipping a latte. They read books, talk on cell phones, or stare out windows but they don’t connect with anyone else in the shop.
We all talk about simplicity…getting back a simpler time but we will never do it. We value our sopisticated taste buds, our elegant afternoon teas, our creamy sweet lattes. Those things have no place in a time when a percolater and an open fire produced a very drinkable cup.
We have turned into tea snobs, coffee snobs, and food snobs…to the point that a couple of years ago an important restaurant started serving grilled cheese sandwiches on white bread, and cream of tomato soup…and it was an instant hit..a gourmet delight. But you know, truckstops all over the US have been serving that same lunch for years…some how it just tastes better if we pay more for it.
True simplicity requires that we remember how to enjoy simple things, unadorned and easily obtainable.
And that we enjoy the company more than the coffee.
image: morguefile
Aaah, the simple things…
Like picking the last of the watermelons from the garden…or sweeping the dirt from the porch…the laughter of a grandbaby…squeal of a day-old piglet…watching the sun set…
The Lord is good!
Absolutley Loralie!
we had a coffee shop here that I remember going to with my dad.. it was called the Coffee Pot Cafe…. just like you discribed. The owner burned it down and tried to collect the insurance…
You’re right, everyone is so self absorbed, and too uppity. That would not be a good thing….
Oh ouchie! ‘Tis true, so true. Every word.
Coffee Pot Cafe? Cool name!
Vee….LOL! I know..sad.
There are a couple of nice coffee shops here, two that have good coffee but better environment. There is always something going on, people talking, I love it. The only down side, they remember my daughter and not me! LOL
LOL! Kisha!
There are some cute little coffee shops in one of the “bigger” towns nearby. People go in every morning or once weekly as a ritual. I am usually there to mail something or similarl errands, but I like to walk around a bit, watching the older or older-fashioned, peoples’ loveliness. You can tell who is a regular. I sit on a bench and watch through the windows. People smiling, eating, and talking. And they will sit for hours enjoying eachother and the simple food. That is beautiful.
Everyone says “hello” and “good morning” or even specifics like “morning Bill, how’s Sue, nice weather”. I adore it. I live to far away or I think I’d make it a point to stop in those shops myself, just to listen. It reminds me of happier times. 
you should stop in..they tend to be the type of places where people are instantly welcome