The Café
Coffee, something good to eat, and a place to sit for a while. The Café is where the OLYL crowd meets for breakfast, lunch, conversation, and whatever happens to come up. Everyone passes through eventually, including people Annette insists are nobody.
One. Feed the neighborhood
The obvious layer, and still done with full attention. The counter, the kitchen, and the pantry, the way a real café is laid out.
The Counter
The espresso in the morning and the pot of tea in the afternoon, the pastry case, the small bites, and the thing under glass you did not plan to order.
- Coffee and Tea
- The Pastry Counter
- Small bites
- Desserts
The Kitchen
Breakfast into lunch into dinner, the recipes worth taking home, and the menu that turns with the season. The wine list and the evening cocktail carry the late tables.
- Breakfast
- Lunch
- Dinner
- Recipes
- Seasonal menus
The Shelf
The jam and the honey and the good olive oil, the coffee beans and the tea and the staples. What fills the cup and the toast here, and what you can carry home through the Mercantile.
- Jam
- Olive oil
- Honey
- Coffee beans
- Tea
- Kitchen staples
Two. Gather the neighborhood
This is the part that makes it OLYL. Not products, gatherings. The Café is where the neighborhood happens, around the tables, and the calendar fills as the season opens.
This Week at the Café
The marquee that changes, whatever is happening around the tables now.
Conversations
The talk that starts at one table and travels to the next.
Book Club Evenings
The Hot Old Ladies bring the circle here some nights, the argument opened to the room.
Music Nights
Someone plays. The room leans in.
Seasonal Suppers
The long table set for the turn of the season.
Afternoon Tea
The pot, the tier, the hour that belongs to no one in a hurry.
Holiday Tables
The room dressed for the day, once a year, and everyone at it. The Hot Old Ladies bring their Holiday Tea to this table first.
Letters
The slow correspondence, read at the table and answered by hand.
Neighborhood news
What the block is talking about, kept by the door.
Today at the Café.
The magic layer. Whatever Blanche is excited about this week sits on the specials board. Around it, without a single thing being sold, the tables are talking about the rest of the world, and each one opens a door to where it came from.
- Hazel’s current book · the Reading Room
- Blanche’s travel plans · the Travel Desk
- A fragrance worth crossing the room for · the Beauty Hall
- A new apron just in · the Mercantile
- A coat someone could not stop describing · Boutique Gramercy
- A recipe going around the tables, from Annette · Annette’s Recipe Box
Not advertisements. The things people around the tables are talking about, and a way to each one.
The Cookbook Shelf is open, and the rest of the Café fills over time. Today it is a place to sit, and everything here is hospitality rather than a store. The reason people return is that they feel they belong.