Vibe-o-cino
I didn’t start frequenting cafes until I lived in Washington D.C. for grad school. I loved that you could sit alone without getting hassled (usually) doing just about anything: reading, writing, drawing, working, knitting, playing a table top game, staring off into space. It’s a multi-purpose space where you can have a business meeting, a moms’ group hanging out, a couple on a first date, or a couple on a last date; open-mics, art shows, the seeds of revolution—almost anything can lend itself to a café setting. A café is one of those unique public-private hybrid kind of spaces. You will overhear and be overheard—plan your gossipy dirt accordingly!
I was the cliched student in the café because it was a nice change of atmosphere (no offense, library), and socially I preferred them over bars. Is this a sad polaroid of my twenty-something life in a big city or a case of “to thine own self be true” where you know early on in your life that you will never be out past 10 p.m. unless a ransom note is involved? Yes and also yes.
Of course there is a hierarchy to cafes. Most of that has to do with various personal factors. Maybe there is one within easy reach of your home or work. Maybe the café has deep sentimental value to you; it’s where you fell in love or had the inspiration for the screenplay or was the place that got you through that super dark time in your life. One of my favorite café is a short distance from home, woman-owned, friendly to dogs (they keep a little container of Scooby snacks behind the counter for the good boys and girls), and was one of the bright spots during the pandemic. At least once a week we masked up to dash in for our online order where a barista always greeted us cheerfully despite the gloom beyond the doors.
And there is “vibe.” Vibe cannot be underestimated as part of the secret ingredient in the café paella. I have avoided places that intimidate me with their cool-hip-trendy-out-of-my-league atmosphere. It’s usually a café the size of a shoebox that also used to be a nineteenth-century barrel makery. The espresso machine looks like it was designed by Dr. Seuss. There is no menu, so you better know your order and hope they have it? A serious-looking barista tends counter wearing eyeglasses that are so hip they are a good ten years away from being in style. The barista always has on a knitted skull cap, even in July. There are three tables in the whole place. One of them is on a small raised stage forcing you to play the game of “is it a café or an interactive, immersive theatre experience where someone in a Phantom of the Opera mask is going to appear and hand me a rose?” When I see those places, I cross the street. I feel like they can sense my tragic inadequacy from twenty paces and if I get too close will unleash a spray of scalding espresso the way you do to keep stray cats away from the garbage.
If given the option I prefer to patronize the indie, small business, local/neighborhood café with vibe that is somewhere between a Nora Ephron romcom meet-cute scene and a place where the next Bruce Springsteen hangs out.
This past Sunday I did not have that option. I had time before a meeting and the café I wanted to be in was too packed. The line to order pressed nearly to the door. The corral for claiming items was packed two shoulders deep. Every seat was occupied. Across the street was a Starbucks, which fell in the “any port in a storm” category.
I believe people who say that when Starbucks opened its first café in the 1970s, it was a cool place; it had the right amount of funk and character and the coffee quality to match. Has anyone checked on Starbucks lately? I think they are definitely going through something.
Unlike the café across the way, this Starbucks was practically deserted. It was so empty you could comfortably host a Quinceanera with room to spare. I immediately felt sorry for the colorless pastry in the case looking bored and demoralized. The croissant’s pale, scaly exterior was the color of faded deck stain. The banana bread was a menacing brick, destined to pick a fight with you fifteen minutes after the coffee kicked in. The bagels were an affront to the baked good itself; a gluten hate crime. The coffee was technically coffee.
Unoffensive blonde wooden tables and brown chairs outfitted the space. A few large paintings hung on the wall. One depicted a jagged landscape of mountains or rising hills with materials that were maybe part collage. An erupting volcano rose in the painting’s background. This was the only thing I spotted that said NOT CORPORATE. Who chose it? And what did the whole scene suggest? I have no background in retail design, but I think “eruption” or anything related to things of an explosive nature do not belong in the food service industry.
I just couldn’t get over how neutered the Starbucks felt; how it had been leached of anything interesting, unique. I thought about the European cafes in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries where people held hot conversations about art and politics and philosophy, where there was a pervasive charge in the atmosphere. I couldn’t imagine anything more radical happening in this place besides a kid pitching a fit for her cake pop.
And the world is littered with Starbucks that don’t seem to stand for much of anything anymore. I guess that’s all okay, if that’s your vibe.
Lens Zen!
Just continuing our smooth ascent to a fine spring cruising altitude with more New England spring scenes. Enjoy!
Sheila- I love cafes so this post caught my eye. Thanks for sharing. Hope you're well (and at a cafe somewhere).
Your single paragraph beginning with "Unlike the café across the way..." is just superb, Sheila. With only a couple of tiny changes, it could be an entire micro-fiction standing on its own. And that first photo has such a perfect composition and gorgeous palette of color. A magazine cover.