It would be foolish to take space in this forum to decry the homogenizing effect on world culture that corporate retailers have. In fact, this entire project is in a sense a repository of the twists, discrepancies, extremes, both positive and negative, that independently owned coffeeshops provide us with. This repository exists to preserve their memory when they are gone. It is also not really the goal of this project to bitch about the people who prefer to go to these corporate establishments, who like to joke about it being ‘their thing,’ while they boast about their inability to survive several hours without a latte from CBTL. It is however our purview, in the intersection of these worlds, to lambast the fool who marches into Savannah Coffee Roasters Cafe to ask them where the Starbucks is located.

It is entertaining for querulous people to mask their critiques or complaints within their declarations that they are not going to complain or criticize. For instance, in response to this gentlemen, the tableautaur might say, “I am going to refrain from making some obvious statement like, ‘You are looking for a starbucks? Close your eyes and walk 30 meters.'” Such statements like these are easy ways to pretend that you are bigger than the culprit and too disinterested to descend into a debate about the merits of such a booji boy. So I will refrain from making such statements as well!

The look on the Starbucks-bound pedestrian’s face characterized the whole larger exchange. It was one of guilty self-satisfaction.

Like a bloated red-faced bank manager, freshly shorn face dappled with sweat from strolling in the sultry spring morning without his parasol, he loses his way, this portion of town is unfamiliar to him, it brings fear to his giant heart, weakened and fat as it shuffles watery blood past his sock-garters into his oedemic ankles, he ducks his head into the cleanest hovel he can find, even then having to push aside mangy curs and urchins with blistered mud-caked hands aside while his eyes adjust to the darkness, he yells out into the dim space, after tucking a finger beneath his starched collar to let his sweaty bosom cool and clearing his throat, “I say, is there anyone down there? I seem to have lost my way… could anyone tell me on which square the Havelocks, Buzzy and Veronica, are having their garden party? I am already frightfully late!”

So it was that the humble folk would offer to help, to no benefit of theirs. The gentleman of course is satisfied that people are generally decent, and that he can continue to enjoy his high standing. But beyond that, in his sheltered and linear existence, he feels proud in his pity for these people who have chosen the low road, but only because he knows that he has made all the right decisions in his life and there have never been moments to look back or cast a stray glance.

But sir, you missed that the people in the den, whose faces were obscured in shade and in the sweat running down your eyebrowless forehead, were smiling, were talking about ghosts and aviation, were smelling the freshly roasted beans and attempting to guess how many were filling the bin, were ruminating on the pleasure of the trek to the bathroom which took them through the lobby of the adjacent building, down a service hallway, and into the lightless bowels of some nowhere building on a corner of some sundrenched square down the road from Starbucks.

coffee, cafe, coffeeshop, review, café

Savannah Coffee Roasters Cafe

7 East Congress Street
Savannah, Georgia 31401