The Perfect Café pt. 1

I went to l'écart today to read (Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?, which, so far, I recommend), and one of the essays describes a café in NO, and I started thinking about what the perfect café would be - both the place and the drink.

Now, cafés are important to me. They are a symbol of the community, a sort of cultural town hall. And they provide caffeine, also important. But most of all, I find they are great places for me to read/write/work. Alone in my room I tend to drift to nytimes.com or some other website, or I watch the latest Daily Show online. Cafés provide just enough people-watching opportunities to provide inspiration and some helpful white noise. Well, on to the perfect café.

First, it must have a name that evokes the place. Some of my favorites:
* Le Relax, in Lille
* L'Illustration, also in Lille
* La Mobylette, in Paris
* Le Pichet Mignon (the Cute Pitcher), in Valenciennes
* The Federal Association of Globetrotters, aka AUR aka Savezno udruženje svetskih putnika, in Belgrade
* Filter, Chicago
* Diesel, Somerville
* Bourgeois Pig, Chicago

Then, there must be books. There must be books. L'écart has 'em which is one of the reasons I like it. Books of course give people something to do, which is nice. But also, a communal bookshelf shows both a value of the written word and enough trust in the clientele to put lots of easily-stolen things within easy reach. This means there is enough sense of community in the place to have communal resources, which is good. Also, they can be great ways to discover new writers, as they offer a much more chill atmosphere than, say, Barnes and Nobles to pick up a random book and read it for an hour or two. Finally, books are just great to look at; hardcover, paperback, all colors and sizes, they are at once regular and clean-edged and random and organinc.

Third, there must be nooks. There must be crannies. Dollop in Chicago is great for this, as is Bourgeois Pig. There should be big rooms where you can grab eight friends and have a raucous conversation over coffee, and small, intimate rooms where you can lean in with someone across the table and speak just above a whisper. And, there should be semi-hidden rooms that have an air of solitude and tranquility for reading or writing. And rooms should not be arbitrary divisions of the place; there should be rooms with old paintings and rooms with edgy aggressive po-mo art, rooms with antique furniture and rooms with sleek metal-and-wood stuff.

Fourth, there must be couches. Real couches. Starbucks here is a great example of how not to do things. They are mostly filled with tables and chairs, with a few generic and overtly matching cushy chairs that are never that comfortable. A café should not look like it was built and designed all at once. It should look like things were added over the years, as tastes changed. There should be couches that once were in someone's house, and solid chairs next to scratched-up tables of all sizes. There should be coffee tables, too. Tryst in D.C. should be the model. It looks more like you walked into someone's living room than a café. After all, a café is, for me at least, part of my home.

Fifth, it must be big, but not feel big. There should always be enough seating that you don't feel like you're costing them business by sitting there for a few hours, but not so much that the place feels empty. It should feel cozy but not cramped. Quasi-industrial high ceilings are fine as long as they make the place spacious but not gymnasium-like.

Sixth, the staff should be helpful, knowledgeable, and cool. What's the difference between the Fair Trade Nicaraguan blend and the Organic Caribbean blend? The person behind the counter should know. And, they should know what "Fair Trade" means and what "Organic" means, and even better, how the coffee got from a tree somewhere in the tropics to the grinder on the counter. There should not be a uniform. Employees should not be reduced to automatons. That's fine if you're selling electronics, but your "barista", as they are unfortunately called, should know you, and you should know them. They don't need to start making what you want before you even tell them, but they should recognize you. One of the thinks I loved about Ebel in Prague was that the servers would hang out in the café when they weren't working. That's good, it means the customers and the servers are all making it a meeting-place instead of just a place of caffeine consumption.

At another time, (maybe), I'll describe what I think is the ideal cup of coffee/espresso.

Right now, my café of choice is Diesel in Somerville, MA, in Davis Square. The front has mostly two-person tables and chairs, while the back has booths, couches, and a sort of computer bar, with high stools. Though it is a bit lacking in the nook department, there is one all the way in the back, and the sort of long hallway that separates the front from the back does enough to isolate the two areas. The staff is great, and often tattooed. Plus, when I go in I often discover a new body part that, evidently, can be pierced. There is a lack of books, and the industrial theme sometimes can be too cold. But with so many students and people working on laptops, it has a great atmosphere anyway, much as Filter (at least the old Filter in Wicker Park) managed. Perhaps if you put the Bourgeois Pig in Davis square, you'd get the perfect café. But for right now, I'll take Diesel over most anywhere else.

In fact, as I told my friend Evan, if I move to Boston at some point, I'll try to live in Davis Square because of Diesel. Also, the Chipotle across the street. It's a deadly combination.

If anyone has a favorite cafe, please post a comment. I'm always looking for new places.