When I wrote Will Starbucks Invade Italy I was amazed at the backlash. Lots of real Americans don’t see the culture in standing at a bar talking with your buddies while downing a quick coffee before scurrying off to other things. If you’re in Italy, you know you can’t start anything—a drive to the country, a business meeting, a talk with the neighbor—without strolling to the bar for a coffee. By that I mean a coffee in a proper cup from someone who actually knows how to make it so you don’t have to put gobs of pumpkin-cinnamon non-fat yogurt cheese in it to make it taste slightly better than swamp gas.
In any case, as someone who tries to understand the other side of every argument, I took to standing in front of cafes along San Francisco streets, peering inside to study the dynamics of the “only in America” coffee culture that was fomenting there.
What I saw, usually, was a claptrap sea of laptop screens aglow with oddly similar googly textboxes. Yes, people were sitting. But there was only one person and one laptop and one huge paper barrel of steaming coffee at each table. My thought bubbles were infrequent and off-color. Culture? Where in the world was it? If I were an alien from a planet of hairy, three eyed creatures with enormous brains the size of a big gulp cup, I might think this was the way Americans took pleasure, a sort of caffeinated, public masturbation.
But don’t mind me. Others have noticed. Yes, I was happy to read the news that:
A North Oakland cafe is trying something revolutionary this weekend. It’s not fat-free croissants or half-price lattes.
The owner is asking customers to leave their laptops at home and actually speak to each other.
So, all hail to Sal Bednarz, who opened Actual Cafe six weeks ago on San Pablo Avenue in Oakland, Calfornia. He’s a revolutionary. Someday there will be an iTalk coming to a cafe near you. Don’t wait for it. Start the revolution yourself.
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