Coffee Houses

Another joint Ecotone entry; this one is on Coffee House as Place.

I remember the first time I entered a Starbucks. It was on Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge, Mass., and what seemed so different about it was how people seemed encouraged to linger: to buy only one overpriced cup of designer coffee but then to sit there all morning. It was almost opposite Harvard Law School and I suspect most of its clientele were law students, choosing a study environment that would never, ever work for me. But I liked it that they weren’t chased out. I ordered tea.

Since those days, Starbucks has covered the globe in much the same way MacDonald’s has, and its cookie-cutter designs render it identical in Cambridge or Davis or London. I avoid it, especially since I stopped drinking coffee many years ago. Yet there are several coffee shops here in Davis: Common Grounds, Mishka’s, Espresso Roma, Cafe Roma, Chamonix—that offer a similar “we won’t chase you out of here even though you’ve only spent $2.65” message. Many of them offer free wireless internet as well (unlike Starbucks, where you have to pay). Cafe Roma features poetry slams and concerts; Common Grounds has book readings and political gatherings.

For a drink that seems to load people up with an energy that leads to the shakes, it’s a civilized antidote, this relaxed notion of how long you can stay. I like it. I can’t give any kind of critique of the quality of the coffee, but each of these havens has its own defining sense of place. Appealing to neo-hippies, Euro-wannabes, or aging grungers, the coffee houses become an extension of the people who sit in them for hours. Even when they’re almost empty, it’s easy to tell if you’d fit in or not.