Feature Story Draft One

Coleman's Corner: it's not that romantic

The summer after I turned sixteen, my father’s Irish side had a family reunion. It was in northeastern Pennsylvania and some if it was held in upstate New York. In that part of the world where the town cemeteries stretch into both states, and if not for the church and the corner store, you might never guess a town exists there at all. 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, where he spent adolescent summers working. He still grimaces at the thought of milking cows. 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 only three hours away. But ever since I can remember he has told me that in the big city, the small town environment is more alive than in small towns themselves these days.


I have few memories before the age of six. However, considering how few places and faces I can distinctly recall, the corner deli below my childhood apartment is engraved in my mind with uncanny clarity. It must be because I spent so much time there, pulling at my dad’s jacket tail wondering when we could leave. He would stop in there for anything and everything, and mostly just to say hello. I never understood this habit of my father’s, of making the strangers he sees everyday a real fixture of his life, until that summer ten years later. It was then I learned that my great- grandfather owned a corner store. And undoubtedly my father’s father grew up working there. And that is 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.

I have this romantic notion in my mind of small mom and pop shops, a bakery downstairs where you daily buy your fresh bread and know everyone working there and around by name. Thinking back on what my father told me about the small town feel of a big city, it rings true for me. Maybe there is a reason we call the area I spend most of my days 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 destination. Maybe its here, with all these people and choices, they are best able to survive. 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. “It’s simply more comfortable for costumers- but more work for me.” Regardless he says a machine will come soon. “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 with a credit card payment option because then they’re not concerned with not having enough cash, will not as strongly consider the price, and therefore likely order more. He also hopes that with credit card option will attract more customers, but he is not entirely convinced that he really looses that many potential customers now without accepting these cards. The main reason he doesn’t want to though is simply because of the time it will soon take him at the end of the day to go through all of the credit card transactions, adding them with the cash, and then calculating tips.

Everyman Espresso has been in business for four years – credit card free. Upon first walking into this coffee shop, 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 jumping out of your peripheral. 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. It fits. It’s the type of place that attracts some new faces, but it primarily 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 my sales are a dollar or two. They’re offering a service, a convenient one, but its something I’d rather do without.” She continues with how ridiculous credit card companies are and how uneager she is to support them, especially since they do nothing to help small business owners. In fact they do the opposite. “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, its the counter-Starbucks. And that’s its object. Sam does appreciate that it has held onto this atmosphere all the way down to the cash only standards of a grass-roots business approach. “But 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’d 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.”

One of the better-known coffee shops in The City with local business appeal is, Joe’s the Art of Coffee. They don’t take credit cards either, and they have five New York locations. “I couldn’t even imagine their spots being any busier,” Sam says, “so maybe I should just be patient.” And she continues to tell me that she knows Joe personally and respects his business. It’s also 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. They offer a five percent discount to those who arrive by skateboard and bicycle: they’re really trying to preserve the neighborhood bakery. And doing so with a modest carbon footprint. 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. She presumes that it is more cost effective for small business who may not make enough sales at the end of the day to cover the service charge. However, primarily, she knows that it is to keep the neighborhood bakery feel. “You know, we’re into being more old fashioned,” she reports, while looking around the very simply decorated, beige colored, rectangular room. This place was made to offer that somewhat faux-old-school bakery, and they seem to be successful at doing so. Birdbath now has five locations throughout Manhattan. Although this mini-chain of bakeries is the little sister of The City Bakery, so the same issues of building a clientele base and making ends meet are probably not considered quite as seriously.

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 looks at me with a smile, “philosophy?” “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. Then I hinted that I was half hoping, or just assumed, that they didn’t accept credit cards to keep the local small business atmosphere. And he replied: “Oh no, nothing that romantic.”