I am currently sitting in the Archer Road Starbucks near SW 34th Street in Gainesville, right after getting off a little early from work in the evening. Open until midnight seven days a week, it is a very noisy place right now, with many international students from the University of Florida hanging out here. The police will be by as well a little later. Not that there will be any anticipated trouble: they come for the free coffee Starbucks offers them. So there's quite a mix in this place, and I am probably the only one here with a full-time regular job outside law enforcement. Besides the Starbucks employees, that is. As for the noise, I can only say that I'm grateful for these earplugs I'm wearing!
Usually at this time of day I am not all that sharp with my thinking. When I do come here for some late-night coffee and study, I usually end up doing something rote and easy, like working on my Chinese character notebook. But I haven't written a blog article yet today, so...
It's interesting how much this area has changed over the years. The building that houses this Starbucks also has Moe's, Panera, and Coldstone Creamery. It was built on the site originally (at least when I first came here in 1977) occupied by a Sambo's restaurant, one of those great old 24-hour chains. We still have a couple of these relics in Perkins and the Clock Restaurant. IHOP used to be 24 hours but now their hours are unpredictable. Steak n' Shake has a couple of all-night establishments in town. And there's still Waffle House, although the one I used to frequent on SW 13th Street (US 441) has been shut down for years.
Behind Sambo's used to be a rather large strip mall with a Winn Dixie in its center. Now that's been completely torn down and replaced with a Kohl's department store. The large field across Archer Road from where I'm sitting and from where I once observed Halley's Comet through my binoculars in late 1985, has been completely filled in for decades, with Wal-Mart, Lowes, a larger movie theater, and many shops and restaurants. I suppose, though, that as long as I no longer live in this now-congested zone, that's O.K.: there are a lot of choices of places to go around here, especially if I'm hungry!
Well, I'm nearing the end of my drink and this article as well. Hopefully, I'll have something more substantial to offer tomorrow! Then again, maybe I won't. Time to go home anyhow...
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That's a different part of town from where I used to hang, and the places whose memories make me brim with nostalgia were closer to campus and weren't chains. I'm sure none of them are there any more, but my favourites were Leonardo's (the veggie deep-dish pizza on whole wheat crust still reigns as the best ever), Bilbo and Gandalf's, and the Mad Monks Inn.
ReplyDeleteBilbo and Gandalf's, you say? Where was that place and what did they serve?
ReplyDeleteNo recollection at all of where it was (nor where the Mad Monks Inn was). I left town 34 years ago, after all. B&G's was on the nicer side, serving stuff popular with the college crowd, but a step up from sandwiches and such. Kind of where we'd go when we wanted fare that was a little more upscale.
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