there is precious little i can walk to in my ‘neighbourhood.’ although i am honored to visit the candler discount mall (as seen in ‘cannibal apocalypse’) on a biweekly basis, the commercial strip from glenwood to memorial on candler has no less than 6 hairbraiding shops, 3 pawn/title loan shops, and one new place called “crabby d’s.” so much for my plans of opening a blackmetal cattery and coffeebar there.
on my route to the eastlake marta station is the oakhurst business district, a small revamped commercial intersection in the intown tradition of east atlanta village, which contains jupiter coffee. it is a delight, of a weekend morning, to walk the 25 minutes up east lake drive, after bypassing the abominable east lake country club golf course (golf courses being the second biggest land waster in east atlanta after the baptist faith), to take a coffee on foot.
in all honesty, all the place needs for me to appreciate it is warm coffee and some soy milk, its most vital superlative being the proximity to my home. on my earliest visit it was not up to much more than this bare bones qualification, although in the proper spirit with its collection of scavenged furniture and hand painted/written signs, but over the 30 months that i have lived in the area it has grown into someplace that i would be proud to travel outside my peripatetic radius to visit if the occasion arose.
i have only two suggestions:
1. ask the video store you are connected with next door to look into some quality eurohorror.
2. hire the guy outside who was looking for a cup of ‘blackjo’ and said he used to be a ‘muffin taster’ for georgia tech.
Kavarna (née Jupiter Coffee)
707 East Lake DriveDecatur, Georgia 30030
Fremont Cafe
Java Connection
Java Hutt
The Mill
Ennui Cafe
Broadway Cafe
j.h. trefry
August 31st, 2007
at 2:13 pm
update! kavarna, quite an improvement aesthetically over jupiter, has opened in the same location and has commandeered the above mentioned video store for their seating area. they have also added a bar in this space and they appear to retail wine and chimay.
the vocal sidewalk scene has not changed however: “where the nursing home at?”
j.h. trefry
November 13th, 2009
at 12:50 pm
either of the two feared forks down the road of the coffeeshop we now stand before at kavarna are unfortunate. arriving at 8:30 last night for a cup we were told “we just closed everything down.” out on the sidewalk we mumbled with a few other folks as we searched the storefront for a posting of hours. “i guess they don’t post them so they can close whenever they want.” “no, here they are!” a rectangle of paper measuring 3″ x 4″ was scotch taped to the inside of the window. “they are supposed to be open until 11pm on thursday nights!” “i’ll bet they are going out of business.” “or they have just gotten totally lame.” either way is unfortunate.