sip one
A café can also go under the name diner, coffee house, coffee shop, or bistro. My mother turned a Woolworths lunch counter into a café. She knew what the people liked and how they liked it (extra lettuce for the woman who tipped her a quarter). A remote table at McDonald’s can be more café than a posh patisserie. The back corner seat on a bus, with a take-out cup, can be a café. It’s all in the attitude.
sip two
I don’t want to feel at home in a café. I don’t want everyone to know my name. I want a café to be a like a park, where I can be with others if I choose, or merely among others. In the café you have servants. You nod and they appear, you ask and they bring. Tip well and you will feel welcomed when you enter, your needs will be monitored with extra glances, and you won’t feel rushed when you linger. This is not a dehumanizing cash transaction; in a café it is quite human, and quite sweet.
sip three
We would have coffee every morning in the same café on 72nd and Columbus. The clock at the bank across the street was stuck on 10:18. “How did it get so late,” we might say at 9:30, or “We’ve got plenty of time” at 11.
sip four
When I am at Les Deux Magots, on the Boulevard St. Germain in Paris, there is no where else. When I am at di Simo on Via Filungo in Lucca, there is no where else. When I am at Kleine’s in Vienna, there is no where else. When I am at Brad’s or Joe’s or Max’s in New York, there is no where else. When I am in the back corner seat on the M4 bus, there is no where else. And it is always 10:18.
sip five
Hemingway wrote in the Closerie de Lilas in Paris, equipped with bluebacked notebooks, pencils, and a pencil sharpener on a marble-topped table; he carried a horse chestnut and a real rabbit’s foot in his right pocket for luck. Peter Altenberg wrote at Café Central in Vienna, which he used as his mailing address; his presence continues to be felt—and seen—in the form of a dapper statue seated at a table. In the 1920s, Borges spent Saturday evenings at tertulias hosted by Macedonio Fernández at Café Perla in Buenos Aires.
sip six
My first writing café was The Balcony on the east side of Broadway and 107th Street, with a lifesize mannequin of Genet’s Madam Irma on the balcony above the bar. Another writer was almost always there when I arrived and still there when I left. The French waiter would fill my coffee at the exact right intervals. After about six months, the other writer nodded hello. After about a year, he asked me what I was working on.
sip seven
At 1 a.m. we have given up on the coffee we ordered ten minutes ago. Who can blame the waiter so close to closing to have forgotten (or ignored) our latest in a long night of requests, and why would he risk waking up the likes of us. He appears with steaming mugs: “Here you go, it was stale I made a fresh pot.”
sip eight
A frigid night in a strange town, warmed by the sight of neon squiggles steaming from a cup. Many coffee shops claim they make the World’s Best Coffee. And they do.
sip nine
My second writing café was Au Petit Buerre (later Au Grenier) on the west side of Broadway and 107th Street. If my check was for $8.30, the proprietor—who always manned the cash register—would say, “That will be eight hundred and thirty dollars,” and I would ask, “Do you have change for a thousand?”
sip ten
When my cup is almost empty, the waitress comes over with the pot, raises her eyebrows, and I nod—slight movements, lovers’ signals. As she pours, the aroma of the coffee mingles with the scent of her skin. “I’m going to give you the check now— it’s the end of my shift—but you can stay as long as you like. Someone else will take care of you if you need anything else.