The coffee shop had been standing for a very long time. It had somehow managed to avoid most of hte updates and upgrades that many other shops had seen over the years, too. Part of its charm and popularity came from the fact that it looked exactly the same as it had in the early days, back when coffee shops were popular gathering places, and coffee cost a lot less than a dollar.
A long lunch counter sat across the front of the store. The fake wood laminate top and textured steel trim had survived pretty much intact despite thousands of coat sleeves rubbing over them across the years. Plastic seats with low backs were fixed into the floor with large bolts at the bottom of their bases. A stainless steel foot rail showed a few dents and scratches, but still stalwartly supported dozens of pairs of boots a day.
Behind the counter is where the real majesty still resided. Floor to ceiling racks contained all sorts of fresh baked goods like donuts, crullers, bagels, and muffins. a few loaves of bread sat partially sliced and waiting to be made into sandwiches. Everything in the racks was made fresh on the premises, and the whole building always smelled of baking, underscored by the scent of strong coffee and the odd vat of soup.
This was the only major coffee shop in a town that had been sitting on this spot for a couple hundred years. The population had never really grown, and the people hadn't needed anywhere else to go have a snack or a light lunch. It was a shrine of sorts, a nod to the heyday of the town where such a building could afford to be built and fitted out in the finest that the era had to offer. It was the kind of place that a person went to because they were broght here as a kid by their parents and grandparents, and the grandparents could say the exact same thing.
In the morning, almost everyone stopped in for coffee, and possibly some breakfast to go along with. There were a few breakfast specials available, everything from a small fry up to an egg on a bun.
Every Monday to Friday, at 11:50, most of the town shut down. Everyone who could walked the short walk to the coffee shop. By noon the counter was humming with activity. Every table in the place was taken, every seat was being sat in. anyone who couldn't find a spot to eat their lunch within the building walked back to their offices or to the park in small groups, and they ate the good food and chatted the leisurely chat with good friends or co-workers. By 12:50 everyone was heading back to their jobs, and getting ready to start work again, feeling refreshed and more productive for the break.
The seniors in town would keep the seats arm in the afternoon, until the local schools let out. Then the high school students would wander in to find a space to do their homework, and the younger kids would come in looking for a donut to eat before their parents called them home to eat a dinner filled with healthy options that every child was guaranteed to be too full to eat.
The coffee shop closed at six, a nod to a town that went to bed early to start jobs that started before the crack of dawn the next morning. No one was going to drink coffee too late and risk ruining that rhythym that had worked so well for so long.
One day, at the other end of town, construction started on a small lot that had stood empty for as long as anyone could remember.
At first, irt was just a portable fence and a sign for a construction company no one had ever heard of.
Then the large equipment moved in, and ever so slowly the lot was cleared of years of scrub and debris. Dump trucks full of branches and bricks and garbage bags were hauled away, and the entire area seemed to change.
Over the next few weeks a basement was dug, a foundation was poured, and scaffolding was erected. There was an influx of new people in town. construction workers who stayed at the local motel and took up tables at the coffee shop without talking to anyone. A small, boxy building began to appear from the nothingness that had occupied the plot for ages.
There was much talk of what might be going in. It was too small to be a warehouse store. THere wasn't enough parking for it to be a restaurant. The hsape and size could have been the same for a dozen different modern shops that residents had seen in other rowns and cities. There was no way of fi nding out what was going in that anyone could tell.
Slowly the building took a more solid form.
The locals tried to talk to the newcomers, tried engaging the construction crew in talk and gossip. The construction crew changed their hours slightly to miss the bulk of the rush at the coffee shop after answering one too many times that they didn't know who they were building for they were just building. Soon the residents were found watching the construction, taking photos and doing searches on the internet to try and find out what was coming to their town.
Soon the exterior was finished, and the decoration of it began. It was painted a pale beige, a popular colour in the world of cheap and nasty building materials. Eventually a sign went up, the wording covered by a tarp. Signs went up that the business would be openeing soon, but what sort of business, or exactly when it would be opening was still a mystery.
The interior work must have begun, because the heavy equipment and construction workers left town at this point, and a new crew came in. These people didn't even come near the coffee shop, sending one person, a young intern she said, to the shop to pick up massive food and coffee orders. Beyond her job description the girl said nothing, just coming in and placing and carrying orders back and forth across the small town's area.
The decoration took weeks, which seemed odd even in the current climate of the town. Each day a new white truck with no markings pulled up to a delivery door, and was unloaded into the building's interior. Then the truck would pull away, and another truck would arrive the next morning. The secrecy was incredible, and no one could penetrate the security or the guard of any of the workers to find out what was going on.
Finally the "Opening Soon" was replaced with a sign saying "Opening Monday". Over the weekend, the chatter at the coffee shop was in full gear, and everyone made plans to be there first thign int he morning to find out waht was going on. Nothing like this had happened to this town in as long as anyone could remember, and no one was going to miss this for the world.
At 9am on Monday, the coffee shop was dead. The businesses were closed, and even the school had made a special trip to see the opening of the mysterious business.
A man in a black suite came forward, his dark hair carefully coiffed and his smile as wide as Main Street. He waved to the crowd, and someone handed him a microphone. They fiddled with the switch for a moment, and a loud screech ripped out of the speakers set up on either side of the parking lot.
"Welcome," the man said loudly once the noise had stopped. "We're glad to have a presence in your town, and we're hoping to have a long and wonderful relationship with all of you. We're pleased to announce the grand opening of your brand new Lotta Coffee franchise!"
The tarp over the logo dropped. It had hidden a large neon coffee cup, with stylised steam rising over the hot pink foam topping the cup.
The silence in the parking lot was deafening.
Waitresses in bright pink uniforms came out carrying trays with steaming cups of coffee. All the adults received a free cup. Other waitresses followed iwth hot chocolate for the kids. finally, a man dressed in a disposable coffee cup costume with a huge grin painted across it followed iwth a basket of donuts and cookies.
The impromptu coffee break lasted for an hour, with tours of the new store and coupons and lots of talk with a woman who said she as PR for the chain, and who was suddenly eager to learn everything she could about his new town and its people.
The taste of the townspeople shifted. Lotta Coffee, for being such a small shop, suddenly had a huge clientele. People would stop in as they could, grab their coffee and their food and run back to work. most employers saw their productivity shoot up, and they encouraged their employees to start spending their time heading to the LC cafe instead of to the old coffee shop. Long leiurely lunches became a thing of the past, and eventually the new business and money that were being generated saw other shops, other companies, coming in. The town flourished.
The old coffee shop started to look a bit dingy, and worn. The owner had to start laying off people, but they were quickly absorbed by other jobs. The tables were sitll filled by seniors in the afternoon, but eventually they too started to drift away. There were so many great things going on in town now that sitting and eating donuts seemed like a waste of time. There were too many thigns to do to not be out doing them.
It took a few months, but eventually the coffee shop closed its doors. There was an auction of pieces of the shop, and everyone commetned on how terrible it was to see these good old businesses go, and how there should be more places like them. After the auction, everyone went to Lotta Coffee and continued the conversation.
The building was demolished. For a long time, the lot sat empty. People remembered the shop occassionally, and sometimes someone would write a letter to the editor to complain about how the lot was in a terrible state of cleanliness, and that somethign should be done. The editor always agreed.
Years later, a fence went up on the property, and the sign for a construction company no one had ever heard of. It was becoming a habit by now, and no one really noticed anymore except to be glad that something was being done about another brush filled piece of land.
The town grew a little larger, and all was good.
No comments:
Post a Comment