When I was in high school, my friends and I did what all kids do – looked for somewhere cool to hang out. We had a little bar we drank coffee at until the owners decided that was no good for the older, drinking clientele and kicked us out. After that, we were out of luck.
Basically we ended up at Denny’s. Now, I’ve got nothing against Denny’s. It’s great if you want a four-course breakfast at 2 am. But, it’s not exactly “cool.”
Back in those dark ages, St. Petersburg was woefully lacking in coffee shops. This was long before Starbucks discovered our Bay area. I only remember one place – Mother’s Milk - and it was way up in Clearwater.
Times have changed. I’m old enough to go wherever I want to. Frankly, I’m too old to go to some places, but that’s another story. St. Petersburg, in the downtown area alone, now boasts “four Starbucks” as Mayor Baker recently, and somewhat inaccurately, announced, adding that he felt this was a sign that the city had arrived as a chic metropolis. I’m not sure I agree with Mayor Rick, but it is nice that I can find a decaf Americano just about anywhere these days.
Now that I’m a student, I’m ever-more on the lookout for a “cool” place to sit and read, write, or just plain goof off. Starbucks aside, the downtown area also has a smattering of independent coffee houses to supply the growing American need for caffeine. I too, though I drink the low-test variety, find myself seeking out the bean.
But, I might as well save you the guess work and tell you that my new-favorite coffee house is Bohemia on Central Avenue.
If we’d had a place like this back in high school, we might have been a lot cooler. Or, at least we would have felt a lot cooler. But I digress…
Bohemia, as the name might imply, is an independent coffee shop that serves up what you would find at any corporate spots, but with charmingly-original size choices like small, medium and large.
It’s everything I love in a coffee shop – artsy, eclectic and a little bit gritty. Rather than marketing their own “line” of music, they play all sorts of cool stuff. Just today I was grooving to The Cure, The Smiths and New Order (hey wait – AM I still in high school?). Well, I still love that music, and so do a lot of us former nerds.
Sure there are a few drawbacks to going “independent.” There is a minimum charge for credit cards, and you certainly won’t find any internet access (which is actually a good thing, for me, as it keeps me on track with my studies).
However, apart from the bratty service you often find in a place as “hip” as this, these folks are seriously lacking in pretension. They are totally cool. The other day, a girl put herself in mortal peril - atop the most rickety ladder I have ever seen – to plug an extension cord into a dubious outlet so that I might amuse myself with my laptop. Lovely.
Inside you have the option of comfy couches or tables and outside – my favorite part – a huge patio, literally twice the size of the shop, with a sea of tables, benches and old-fashioned bistro lights crisscrossed overhead. At night, though I’ve only driven by, it looks kind of like a twinkley, Parisian café. I half-expect to find Toulouse-Lautrec in the courtyard, putting the final dabs of paint on a poster for the Moulin Rouge.
Oh, and they have beer. Glittering, frosty imported bottles – some brands even a beer snob like me didn’t know existed. Need I say more?
But, before you go rushing out to Bohemia, taking up all the sweet spots on the patio, I should warn you. Just this morning I was sitting – steamy Americano in hand, laptop at the ready – reveling in the sunshine. All was perfect.
Out of nowhere, it came. I thought I had been assaulted by stray buckshot until I saw it. On my pants, in my hair, and terribly close to my full cup of coffee: bird crap. There, I said it. Maybe you should just stay home.
Of course, on the other hand, my friends tell me it’s a sign of good luck. We’ll see.
Published in The Gabber Newspaper, Gulfport, FL 3/1/07
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