Allarie's Feature Edit

Coleman's Corner: nothing that romantic

My father loves reminiscing, and so while driving down this two-lane road we passed the dirt road he claims he ‘copped a feel’ for the first time, and the junk yard where he left his older brother’s motorcycle after sneaking it out and half-totaling it, and his second cousin’s family farm. My dad is far from a country boy, and so as soon as he could, he left this sleepy town for the city that never sleeps. It is here, he has always told me, that the small town environment is more alive than in small towns themselves these days.

Out of the handful of places I can distinctly recall from my childhood, the corner deli below my apartment is clearly etched in my mind. My father would stop in there everyday, mostly just to say hello. I never understood this habit of my father’s, until that summer ten years later, when I learned my great-grandfather owned a corner store. It was undoubtedly passed down a few generations, and so that was where my father spent most his time before he knew how to tell time. That was until, the almost inevitable occurred, and Coleman’s Corner became a Texaco.

The thought of a small town feel in a big city rings true for me. Maybe there is a reason we call the area I live The Village; perhaps it is here where you will find the local business and grass-roots organizations, even in the midst of such a metropolitan place. From my perception, this atmosphere is still found in cafes around the city, and for the purpose of my pseudo-investigation, I’ve decided it is exemplified in the absence of credit card machine.

The Asian man who owns The Adore, a French cuisine café, refuses to give me his name because he disputes that what he says is worth writing down. Of course, I disagree. I walked in after reading the ‘cash-only’ sign taped to the glass front door, and immediately inquired: why? His response does not answer why he is cash only, but rather, that he will not be much longer. “I’m not ready yet – well now I’m almost ready. I don’t want to, but I must.” He believes that customers are more comfortable paying with a credit card because then they’re not concerned with having enough cash, so will not as strongly consider the price, and therefore likely order more. He also hopes that a credit card option will attract more customers, although he is not entirely convinced that he really looses that many potential customers now. He does not even mention the price he will pay for including this service, because the primary cause of his reluctance is only that it will take him more time at the end of the day to compile and calculate all of the credit card transactions.

Everyman Espresso, an East Village coffee shop, has been in business for four years – credit card free. Upon first walking in here, and even from the fedora donning and hand rolled cigarette smoking couples crowding the outside, you receive an anti-corporation impression. The chalk boarded menu and seating area are both limited but always full. There are several posters on the windows and walls supporting local acts, and in several places you see the words organic and fresh just out at you in your peripheral vision. I walk by this place three times a week at exactly the same time and see the exact same people either reading inside or chatting outside. I trust from first hand observation, that it is the type of place that attracts some new faces, but subsists off the regulars.

When I walk in, Same Pemix, the owner, is restocking the shelves and chatting with the baristas. After I introduce myself she laughs with relief and says, “Oh good, I thought you were that lady who called me on the phone. She was yelling at me and questioning me as to why I didn’t agree with her that not accepting credit cards is so crudely archaic.”

Sam began this business credit card free for a reason. She believes in the idea of New York City being a cash community. “It’s an ethical thing I’m holding onto,” she tells me. “And also, why should I pay 19 cents of every swipe to some company – especially when most of my sales are a dollar or two. They’re offering a service, a convenient one, but its something I’d rather do without.” She also says credit card companies harm small businesses in favor of big business. “Best Buy,” the example she provides, “has a lower service charge because the credit card companies know they’re getting more business there.” So credit card companies do not consider the amount charged, but the amount of times charged.

This coffee shop does have a certain feel; it’s the counter-Starbucks. And that’s its object. Sam says is not easy holding onto this atmosphere. “It’s a challenge,” she states. “An uphill battle, we’ve even been contemplating it lately.” The truth is for her, even with those 19 cents taken away, she estimates that she would still make more sales daily. So many New Yorkers never carry cash, or don’t have the time to run to the ATM, but they’ll make time to buy coffee. “So if we can’t serve them, they’re going somewhere else,” she reluctantly admits. “I want to fight the good fight,” she says with a shrug and a smile, “but it isn’t that easy.”

It is not easy, but I do think that the small town environment is still alive in big cities because it seems as if these places are the few in the world where you can subsist without relying on capitalist means. This pertains to credit card machines, because as soon as a business implements a credit card processor than there is a third party involved, a middleman between the client and customer. And that middleman is benefiting from doing not much more than just being there. Creditcards.com is a website that connects merchants with potential credit card processor suppliers; they basically sell those little black machines that you swipe your credit card through that connect your card to the business’ register. This website informed me of how this system works. There are several companies that offer these little black machines, and all have deals with various banks. The business owner has to apply for this machine, and then after being accepted a specific plan is determined. The terms of agreement and fees vary depending on each credit card processor supplier, the business itself and personal choice of the business owner. However, there are always transactions fees, monthly fees, monthly minimum amounts, and start up fees. And the fee that is less often heard, but likely most intimidating, is the discount rate. This rate is how the credit cards profit so heavily. It is a portion of each sale that goes straight back to the credit card company, on top of the transaction fee. I scanned through several examples of plans and found that on average the transaction fee was .20 cents and the discount rate 1.60%. Considering these serious deductions off a two-dollar cup of coffee, it is understandable why despite customer disapproval, incorporating credit card companies into a small business anything but attractive.

Joe’s the Art of Coffee has defeated the credit card scheme. It is one of the better-known coffee shops in the city with local business appeal is and it now has five New York locations. “I couldn’t even imagine their spots being any busier,” Sam says, “so maybe I should just be patient.” It’s the environment, so the customer base they’ve built doesn’t even mind the cash-only aspect because they love the place so much. Cash only places are rare though these days, and while Sam herself prefers the credit card free ideology, she has also started wondering if is really that big of deal. “It sucks to say,” she says, “but do people even care that much?”

Bluebird is an organic bakery, priding themselves on local coffee and ingredients too. This place has the self-proclaimed title of a ‘green bakery.’ The walls are made of wheat and the counter tops 100 % recycled paper. Anything not made in the back is delivered by bicycle. When I walked in there and asked the woman, Camellia Tatara, working behind the counter about their reasoning behind not accepting credit cards, she wasn’t entirely sure of the logistics. However she is confident that the choice was primarily made to keep the neighborhood bakery feel. “You know, we’re into being more old fashioned,” she reports, while looking around the very beige colored, furniture-free room. This place was made to offer that an old-school bakery experience, mimicking the days when there really was only one bakery and you had to arrive at certain times before the fresh bread sold out. They’re successful at doing so; birdbath now has five locations throughout Manhattan. However, it does not fall into the same small business category, because this mini-chain of bakeries is the little sister of The City Bakery.

Joes’s the Art of Coffee has build a solid reputation on their non-commercial vibe. They have neighborhood group runs, work with local school children, and to make it a personal coffee shop experience, their baristas even have profiles on the website. I asked the guy working behind their counter, Michael Johnson, what their philosophy behind not accepting credit cards is, and he looked at me with a smile. “Philosophy?” he said, “well we’re supposed to tell you that we don’t accept credit cards because legally you can’t tell a customer that there is a minimum amount to swipe.” I found this surprising, because delis are constantly telling me the opposite, and I always end up walking out with five dollars of random grocery items that I’ll never need. He told me that delis say that because otherwise they won’t make enough of a profit to compensate for the credit card charge. This makes sense. So we chatted a bit more about this cash only system. He doesn’t think it detracts customers, nor does he seem to mind if it does, because their current method is quite successful and not changing anytime soon.

I think back to why my father loves the city and why there is something comforting about the neighborhood deli, even though are three or four in a two block radius and they stay open twenty four hours a day with nothing but processed goods. Perhaps Birdbath has the backing of an already successful twenty-first century bakery, but I still find it endearing. But perhaps I’m just holding onto something that hasn’t even existed since I’ve been alive. When talking to the barista and Joe’s the Art of Coffee I kept hinting to him, half hoping, or possibly just credulously assuming, that they didn’t accept credit cards to keep the local small business atmosphere. But he casually replied with, “Oh no, it's nothing that romantic.”