1996 - A Flashback in Coffee House Culture
When you go into a coffee shop these days - assuming it’s not the type with a counter a two little tables, but actually the kind that has places to sit and stay and order a second cup - and look around, you’ll see quiet people sitting by themselves at tables with their laptops. Whether their writing or chatting with friends across the country, or doing homework, one thing you know for certain they’re not doing is communicating with the people around them.
When I was a junior and senior in high school and I had a car and the ability to get around, I spent a lot of time at the Longbranch Coffee House in Carbondale, IL (small Midwestern public university town). On a Friday or Saturday night, the front room at the Longbranch was packed to the gills with people who were anything but quiet. Most of them knew each other, or got to know each other during the course of the evening. People went there to meet friends, play cards, have their fortunes read (seriously), and of course drink coffee. It was a cigarette-friendly place and, between the yellowed windows and walls and the coffee stains on the mismatched table cloths, the place had a very warm, broken-in feel. There was always local art on the wall, like a lot of coffee shops, but at Longbranch, I usually knew the artists personally.
I didn’t have a lot of friends from high school who liked the place as much as I did, so I met new friends there. All types. Hippies and punks and college kids and wanderers.
I have never really known a place as comfortable and familiar as the Longbranch since I left southern Illinois. I know that has a lot to do with me, having less time to sit in a coffee house, and a lot to do with living in a much larger community where there were more new faces and more competition. But there is also the element of technology changing our lifestyles. I am genuinely guilty of, and even enjoy, the coffee shop laptop thing, but I miss the days before they dominated the landscape.
When I was a junior and senior in high school and I had a car and the ability to get around, I spent a lot of time at the Longbranch Coffee House in Carbondale, IL (small Midwestern public university town). On a Friday or Saturday night, the front room at the Longbranch was packed to the gills with people who were anything but quiet. Most of them knew each other, or got to know each other during the course of the evening. People went there to meet friends, play cards, have their fortunes read (seriously), and of course drink coffee. It was a cigarette-friendly place and, between the yellowed windows and walls and the coffee stains on the mismatched table cloths, the place had a very warm, broken-in feel. There was always local art on the wall, like a lot of coffee shops, but at Longbranch, I usually knew the artists personally.
I didn’t have a lot of friends from high school who liked the place as much as I did, so I met new friends there. All types. Hippies and punks and college kids and wanderers.
I have never really known a place as comfortable and familiar as the Longbranch since I left southern Illinois. I know that has a lot to do with me, having less time to sit in a coffee house, and a lot to do with living in a much larger community where there were more new faces and more competition. But there is also the element of technology changing our lifestyles. I am genuinely guilty of, and even enjoy, the coffee shop laptop thing, but I miss the days before they dominated the landscape.