Wasn’t it Lana Turner who was discovered in a coffee shop?

When you hear the words “coffee shop” what do you think of?  The first thing that came to mind should NOT be a big corporate owned conglomerate.

I think of a small place, cozy, with great pie and cake.  Coffee in heavy ironstone mugs (or whatever they call it), and someone who knows that I like a dollop of unsweetned whipped cream on the top of my coffee to stir in with just a pinch of Stevia.

I think of  Katherine Hepburne and Bogey, Doris Day and Rock Hudson.  Coffee shops belong to small neighborhoods whether they are in big cities or po-dunk towns in the middle of a cornfield.  A great coffee shop is an entity unto itself.

When people got hooked on Starbucks at $3 dollars a pop (they don;t call it star-bucks for nothin’) they missed the point.  When Starbucks started selling protien shakes THEY missed the point.

A coffee shop has never been about the coffee.  It’s about the smell, the atmosphere, the camaraderie, and the pie.

Scones, lemon bars, and muffins are great for tea rooms but a coffee shop without a thick slice of homemade pie, warm from the oven with thick fruit syrup bubbling out the top…well that isn’t a coffee shop at all.  A coffee shop should be a haven in an unexpected thunderstorm, a dry mecca where your next adventure awaits.

A good coffee shop will remind you of Cheers, Mel’s Diner, and the scene from When Harry Met Sally all at once.

If you find one don’t go anywhere else.  It is a treasure that could easily go the way of gas station attendants and real diners with blue vinyl swivel seats.

Made ya smile just thinking about it, didn’t it?

image:SXC

Post from: Kettle and Cup

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

Post from: Kettle and Cup