Café Society

Last week I wrote about the closing of our café.

Now that's the sign that a café is real, and enduring: people can call it "our café."

Can you say that about a Starbucks? Or even a Peet's? (And I like Peet's.)

I'm here to report, six days later, it's still closed. The notice has been ripped away and all that is left is a corner spot in the middle of what could be the most expensive real estate in the Northeast. I cannot help but wonder what will come next. Will it be another café? (Good luck with that.) Will it be a little corner store? (We call them "conna stowas" here and they take work and personality to build, over the long run.) Will it be another boring boutique with $120 t-shirts? Oh, I hope not.

I have a good friend (love him, even though he has more degrees than a thermometer) who writes about what he calls "the cutesification of America." Remember Union Square in San Francisco? It used to be gritty; now it's an extension of well-known franchises. I'll bet that there are spots across the country that were once the center of somebody's hometown and now house yet another Starbucks or Rite-Aid.

As I mentioned earlier, I am in favor of the free market. I'm all about competition, and bringing jobs to depressed areas. And, trust me, after an excruciating engagement to someone who was stuck somewhere in the 1950s (with a wardrobe to match), I am entirely in favor of progress!

So the question is: how do we move forward without becoming caught up in being "cutesified"? Is there a way to grow and make progress without becoming so cookie-cutter that we are retro before it's cool to be retro?

I miss what's real.

Until next time,

Conna