The Three O’Clock Cookie Run

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.