My Café
I wish I could show you, tell you more.
I wish I could tell you more, show you more about my favourite café. Particularly where it is and the beauty of it. I have only been a customer here for two years, but it really is one of my favourite places on earth - I’m not exaggerating.
I can’t tell you where it is, where I live, because not only do I value my privacy but I also have fear. My children don’t deserve to have their location spread across the internet.
I’m forced into somewhat anonymity. But perhaps that is a good thing. I get to have a few more secrets at a time where I share my life through these “pages”.
This café though - it is one of greatness.
Part pub, part restaurant, part café.
A mix of old wooden walls contrasting with cheap plywood.
Tables, yet to be sticky.
Obscure art.
The coffee is notable. They make it was such care and attention that you really can taste the difference.
The cakes and pastry too. It’s not that rank plastic covered crap from a batch baked soulless warehouse. It’s from an independent bakery and christ, the almond croissant is to die for. The doughnuts, in the times I fancy them burst with joy. Then sometimes they have a strange new creation and I take the risk - today for example I had a banoffee bun - delight.
The staff also make this place.
The staff who greet you with a smile.
Who stop for a quick conversation.
Who know your order.
Last week we joked. When I arrived the place was empty. As soon as I sat down it filled up. As I ordered my second round of coffee I said smirking at the rushed-off-her-feet barista “I must be bad luck, it was empty when I came”.
She laughed and nicely span it around… “No they are following you, you’re bringing the customers”.
“Ah so I am good luck?”
We laughed.
“Go sit down” she said, shooing me away “there are five orders before you” - she didn’t pre warn anyone else. They had to stand and wait.
Out of the 103 posts I’ve published on substack I can safely say I’ve written 90% of them sat here - at my table - including this one.
My table is in the corner.
No one behind me, everyone in front of me. Large windows let in the light and should I want to, I can just people watch. Right now there are a couple, on an early date - it’s going well.
People watching fills my mind with ideas. Just being here makes me more articulate than any location.
My soon to be published book - I can safely say 60% of it was written here, most of it edited too. This café lives in the pages of my debut book.
My second book - my first novel we’re in the 80% range - the characters, the development, the stories - many of them started while I sit here, sipping coffee and ramming pastry into my mouth.
What a life.
So this café in a way is my muse, my safe space, my go too, when I need to escape.
I wish I could tell you where it is.
I wish I could show you photos and introduce you to the staff.
But for now, it will have to be my little secret.
How about you dear reader? Tell me about your go to writing spot? What makes a café your favourite?
Thank you for reading today’s essay, happy Friday,
Tom
Oh, oh! I actually have one for this post!! Not quite Cozy Cafe™, but a place we used to call "The Bench". It felt like no one else knew it was there.
One summer years and years ago I saw a group of local teens dragging a (…probably stolen) four seater picnic bench through the woods near where my parents live. I would see them walking in that direction quite a lot. I didn't think much of it at the time but I stumbled upon the picnic bench years later during Covid when I was chasing after the dog. They'd managed to get it into a small clearing which sat about 20 metres away from the footpath and it was completely hidden away.
I like to think they used to gather at their picnic bench to listen to music and drink cheap cider and that awful 'blue flavour' WKD (evidenced by the slightly scorched table top from a couple of disposable BBQ trays, and a few glass bottles which, by that point, were slowly being claimed by nature in the long grass). I like to think it was a place where they could take a break from grappling with the awkward 'space in time' between childhood and adulthood. Their sacred place in the woods where they could retreat from the world and just be teenagers when the 'grown ups' wanted them to be responsible adults. That's just my fantasy... kind of like the stories we make up about people when we're people watching, but from the future looking back through a window in time by the evidence they left behind.
Anyway, when I was grappling with my own awkward 'space in time' between the final months of my counselling degree and graduating, I used to sit at the picnic bench with my laptop writing my final essays (weather permitting!). In the summer I graduated, me and my partner had a collective existential crisis about what to do next. We used to go to "The Bench" when living with my parents got too much and spend the day there playing music, drinking bottles of Peroni, sunbathing, reading, applying for jobs we didn't really want, putting the world to rights for hours.
Their picnic bench in the woods, where they found what they needed at the time, became me and my partner's picnic bench in the woods, where we found what we needed at the time. A sacred place shared between strangers. We moved away a while ago now, but I haven't found a place like that since. I should visit "The Bench" soon.
It sounds delightful! You’ll have to include it in the acknowledgements of your book, keeping the exact name and location secret, of course 😉