My Town Has a Coffee Shop Everyone Loves ☕️
...I hope you have a third place, too
This past Saturday, I woke up Kyle in my usual way.
“Psst…” I whisper, nudging him.
“Mmphm?” He mumbles, eyes still closed.
“It’s 7:08. Coffee’s open. Wanna go or sleep in a little?” Reader, know that the nights before, I always ask him if he wants me to do this, and he always, always says yes.
Brief silence. Then, “…Sleep. I’ll see you there.” He turns his back toward me. Reader, he also always answers with this. I don’t know why he wants me to still ask him, but I oblige.
I pick up my backpack—I’ve been up for two hours and have long been dressed for the morning—and head out the door at 7:10 a.m. I also arrive at 7:10 a.m. because we live that close. This is handy for our daughter who works here, and also for our dog, who is mostly fantastic at staying put in our yard, but if she ever wanders off, it’s to the coffee shop where she’s probably looking for us. Before she moved away, the former head barista used to send me a simple text: Ginny’s here again.
The air smells of the ice storm predicted on its way late tonight. Two days prior, I went on a long walk in shorts; this morning I’m in my down jacket and wool cap. This is winter in the Texas Hill Country.
I slug my backpack onto the second-best seat in the house (the best already claimed by what’s-his-name with a friend I don’t recognize; they’re already talking theology with a Bible in between them) and I order our usuals. The baristas know Kyle will claim his pre-ordered drink whenever he shows up, and I know they’ll deliver the breakfast tacos to our table whenever they show up from the taqueria down the road.
I enjoy two minutes with my book and then in walks Anne1, turtleneck poncho and oversized hunter hat, complete with ear flaps.
“Morning,” I say, “Walk here?”
“Pfft, girl,” she answers, “You know I didn’t.” She’s here almost every morning, bright and early, orders something small in a to-go cup, and often takes it with her on a morning walk. This time, though, she pushes two tables together. As she waits for friends, we chat about our husbands at home; hers already up with his preferred home brew and chair, mine on his way but honestly probably back to snoring. She then pulls out her phone and her thick reading glasses to check the forecast. Combined with her outfit, she looks like a benevolent spy doing a terrible job trying to hide.
It doesn’t take too long for her friends to arrive: Paul and Betty, a couple who’ve retired here from Chicago to be closer to their grandkids, Melissa, a quiet single woman I’ve never really talked to, and June, an older woman who recently moved to an apartment just across the river about a ten-minute walk away. She used to drive ten minutes. I doubt she moved solely for the convenience of the coffee shop, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she moved here for what that ten-minute walk represents.
She waves at me as she walks past. “Getting ready for the exciting weather?!” she asks me with a smile and eager clap.
Back to my book, I read a paragraph once, then twice, then on the third reread I admit I have no idea what the sentences say because I don’t have my earbuds in and can hear every conversation around me. I could put them in, but I don’t really want to. I’d rather hear the cacophony. I overhear Jason at the espresso machine say, “Good morning!” followed by a very British, “Good morning, everyone!” from the back. One of the owners, Katherine, has entered from the back employee door with her husband, Dan, who’s from New Zealand.
Two minutes later, Katherine sidles up to my table. “I’m so sorry we didn’t give you the family discount on your order this morning.” Originally from England, she’s lived here long enough to have a sort-of hybrid accent; definitely not transatlantic but still not straight-up purely Texan nor Brit.
“Oh! I didn’t even notice,” I reply honestly.
“I was lying in bed watching the transactions come in, wondering how business was doing and whether we should even be open right now, and I saw your name come through and it was full price.”
“Truly, it’s okay. It was our usual and I truly didn’t notice.”
“Kyle coming later?” I nod.
We proceed to chat about all the little heart-wrenching decisions she has to constantly make as a small business owner. “A few of the baristas were telling me how they depend on weekend morning shifts to make rent, and that if we close they might be short on cash,” she says with a wince. “But I can’t stand the thought of them getting in an accident on the way. I couldn’t live with myself.”
“If the roads are that bad, there wouldn’t be that many customers here anyway, right?”
“True,” she agrees, “Though you never know. The die-hards who walk here might be banging on the front door in desperation.” I grin and raise my eyebrows: guilty. “…Though we’ve sold an absolute ton of retail in the past twenty-four hours. I couldn’t believe how many bags of beans people bought. Seems everyone’s getting ready to hunker down.” I had my daughter buy us a bag yesterday.
Kyle comes in the front door, plaid shirt and bed-beard, and sees me still talking with Katherine so he walks to the counter to claim his coffee. By the time he sits down across from me, Alex and his wife Cora with their toddler Cece have claimed the table next to us. With Anne and her gaggle of friends at one end and us on the other, as well as the nice tech developer-guy (Steve? I want to say that’s his name) who always asks me how my son’s college applications are coming along sitting in-between, we are now a row of regulars, all in one conversation admitting that we are clearly here to prepare for cabin fever.
“It’s like we know we’re not going to be here for a few days,” Alex muses. We nod in agreement.
They live a ten-minute drive from here, on land, where they are renovating a 128-year-old farmhouse. We briefly exchange renovation woes; our latest is Kyle’s uncertainty on whether he can replace more siding in this upcoming storm; theirs on whether all their old pipes will freeze. Alex and Cora share their plan to keep their animals warm, and I make a mental note to nudge Kyle that we should do the same with our chickens.
“You have ducks? Get eggs?” Kyle asks Alex.
They laugh. “More than we need. Want some?”
“Yes, please!” I say too eagerly.
“We’ll put some on your porch swing sometime,” says Cora. “If you ever see them there, just know they’re from us.”
Kyle and I sip our coffee, inhale our tacos, and weave our conversations in and out of just us and then with other regulars. Kyle and I talk about our big kids for a few minutes, then we remark with Alex and Cora about the delights of toddlerhood as Cece greets one of her best friends, David, who’s just come in with his parents who also live a few blocks away. They hug and shriek like two-year-olds, then proceed to chase each other around the coffee shop. Katherine smiles at the scene from behind the cash register; she doesn’t seem to mind.
“Has Cece ever wandered into the employees-only area?” I ask Cora.
“Yep,” she laughs. I think of the many antics Tate has told me about the gaggle of children that comprise the regulars here: the two little girls who always incessantly knock on the back ordering door to talk to the employees (one time Tate exited the bathroom and one of them greeted her with a loud, “I didn’t know people who work here were allowed to go potty!”), the toddlers who play shop in the kid-sized coffee shop replica out back, the little girl in glasses and pigtails who comes in with her dad for routine dates, wherein she brings her purple plastic purse and dons Elsa heels.
There are times I want to be here because I want to get out of the house in order to focus on my work, yet there are times I hesitate, because while I go ostensibly to write, it is clear why I often don’t.
Then again, there are times to get work done and then there are times to close all screens and look at humans in the eye. The work will still be there.
///
It is now five days later, and though there’s still snow on the ground where the sun doesn’t hit, it’ll most likely melt by this afternoon. I’m back at the same corner table to finish up my thoughts here, and two other regulars are next to me. They saw me in line and saved this seat for me when it miraculously opened. One of my best friends is across the way having coffee with her church friend; she’ll probably come over here in a bit to say hello and sit for a spell. Anne and her usual lady group of five are huddled around a two-person table. The ordering line stretches across the shop and nearly out the door.
People are glad the coffee shop is back open.
We humans are made to live in-person, in the flesh, near each other, with plots of land we can see and comment on and ask about. It is a good-and-right thing that I know one of the women at the table next to me is a financial planner and the other one bakes the cookies for the coffee shop. There is a deep rumbling of satisfaction that I know the wandering cat out on the cafe’s porch that I’m watching right now is named Poppy and lives two blocks away from me. It is also good that I know that Anne’s husband is a firefighter, that Cora wants to ask me homeschooling questions sometime, and that Lucy the barista might be able to do Tate’s makeup for her wedding.
Another hour later, and Paul and Betty are now at the table next to me, sharing with me their ice storm experience. Chris, another work-from-home regular, has just walked in and has sidled over to my table neighbors to talk about his weekend’s hunting adventure. He got two does.
“A community needs a soul if it is to become a true home for human beings. You, the people, must give it this soul.” -Pope St. John Paul II
Also:
A Drink With a Friend episode from the archives on third places
An essay I wrote a few years ago on third places and homesteads
My brief thoughts on how online “community” isn’t really community
Katherine Martinko’s recent piece on hosting more family dinners
Savannah Kruger on building neighborhood communities and also on stoop coffee
…And honestly, just search “community” or “neighborhood” on Substack and you’ll see how many people crave it, know their need for it, and are willing to roll up their sleeves and find creative ways to make it happen in their local spaces.
All the real-life people in this essay have their names changed out of respect and privacy.
For my entire childhood my Dad started his day at the 600 Cafe. He and his buddies met there, usually before the sun came up, to have breakfast and coffee and talk about the latest cow sale, commodity prices, THE WEATHER, and all the things ranchers in Eastern Montana talk about. One of my childhood friends now runs it (her parents have owned it my whole life and I think she might now). I live 1500 miles away, but the 600 still feels like home when I go back to my hometown.
When we went on vacations, my Dad had a gift for finding that town's 600 Cafe and would get the beat on the local goings on. He found my favorite cafe in Helena (where I went to college) on our first visit.
I've never found anything quite like that here in Texas, probably because I live too close to Fort Worth and not in a neighborhood.
It's stories like this that make me wish we lived "in town". Though I also love my tree-filled acreage and chickens and dirt road.