Celebrity Sighting!

Just days ago, I was complaining that Minneapolis has no good celebrities; today I'm pleased to report that I spoke too soon: I saw Joel Coen and Frances McDormand last night at the Doucheburger! Unfortunately, I didn't get to wait on them. I did, however, keep their kitchen receipt to show my grandchildren. (Which star ordered the all-you-can-eat sausage buffet? I'll never tell.)

As titillating as the experience was for me and the rest of the yokels in the restaurant, I admit I'm a little hurt that Joel didn't take the opportunity to offer me a role in his next film. I guess some people don't recognize talent when it's gawking at them from behind a stack of menus.

Hark!

This weekend I picked up some frozen raspberries and a bottle of V-8 at Hark's Food Market, on 24th and Nicollet. A Google search for Hark's led me to this MPR story about a murder that happened on this corner in 2006. What I found most interesting about the story was Whittier resident Christina Schmitt's presumption that locally-owned businesses like Hark's contribute to the neighborhood's safety. As MPR's reporter points out, plenty of crimes are committed in the area, some of them serious, many of them right in front of Hark's. Yet I wonder how many more crimes might be committed there if the owners of Hark's--who evidently live not far from the store--weren't keeping an eye on things. "The more I know [the people who loiter near the store]," says owner Ian Ates, "the less they cause troubles. It's like an unspoken bond."

Celebrity Keg Tapping

Well, folks, it's time for another Oktoberfest at the Doucheburger. The festivities start tonight, when local weathergoon Sven Sundgaard will tap the ceremonial keg.

Events like this make me feel sad for the City of Lakes. Why can't we attract better celebrities?

A small business of my own

About this time last year, I threw off the chains of steady employment to start a freelance commercial writing business. It (and I) have evolved significantly since then. Most significantly, I've joined forces with several amazing people, and together we have founded a new company, Kazoo Branding. Today is our official launch. Check us out at www.kazoobranding.com.

Before I began this blog, I carefully considered the impact my experiment might have on my business. The Kazooks and I hope to work with all kinds of companies, including the big chains that I'm refusing to shop at for another eleven months. Who knows how it will all shake out, but my hope is that I'll gain some insight into why some small businesses thrive but others buckle under the weight of the big boxes, and into how the big chains can participate more fairly and actively in the communities they inhabit.

Mel's Diner

Okay, here's a confession: I wait tables part-time. Here's another confession: I store pens in my hairdo and I chew a lot of gum. Basically, this is me.

If those behaviors are waitressy, than I'm a waitress even when I'm at my real job. I can chew half a pack a day, easy, and I was worried that it would be hard to find gum near my office. (The huge Lunds down the street was my pre-unchained supplier.) But, lo and behold, there's an independent grocer on the next block: Galapagos Market, at 420 East Hennepin. I had to speak Spanish to get my chicle, but I didn't mind. They also have boligrafos for sale. Que buena suerte!

Thai Tae Tie Ty

On Saturday, I had dinner with my friends Josh and Sarah at True Thai on Franklin Avenue. The place has gotten a lot of positive buzz lately, and I wasn't disappointed. The food was cheap and fantastic and, best of all, the plates were garnished with these flower-shaped carrot cutouts that, when placed upside down on your thumb, look just like Raggedy Ann's hair.

Coffee Crawl Friday: Apartment 104

The place: small and kind of dirty. The coffee: who can tell underneath all the half-and-half? The barista: grouchy and frumped out. But I'll be damned if it didn't feel like home.

Coffee Crawl Thursday: Diamonds Coffee Shoppe

Diamonds Coffee Shoppe is located on the most godawful strip of Central Avenue. There are a few wooden tables set up in front of the shop(pe), but between the trucks belching past and the general fugliness of the scenery, I can't imagine anyone would want to sit there for longer than it takes to wait out an asthma attack. However, like countless people who grew up in total shitholes, Diamonds turned out cool in spite of its surroundings. It has a biker vibe (Harleys, not Schwinns), several small eclectic seating areas, talented neighbors, and "reasonably bottomless" cups of coffee. It's just the kind of unpretentious, blue-collar place that makes Northeast so Northeasty, and if you're in the area you should probably stop in. They also have beer.

Diamonds Coffee Shoppe
1618 Central Ave. NE
612.789.JAVA

Coffee Crawl Wednesday: Wilde Roast Cafe

If I had a more sophisticated palate, I'd talk about the coffee. If I had a more sophisticated education, I'd talk about the art. Suffice it to say that the Wilde Roast Cafe is pleasant and Victorian and its menu is extensive and contemporary, and that I like both the coffee and the art. I have a weakness for portraiture, as I imagine Oscar Wilde must have--what else could possess a man to write an entire novel about a portrait? Wilde can't be faulted for his appreciation of the form; the Victorians were too busy playing croquet to deconstruct art. If I'd ever bothered to take an art history class, I'd probably know that portraits are a tool of the bourgeois and that the bourgeois are a bunch of tools. Thank god I'm so unsophisticated: just look at her gorgeous earrings.

Wilde Roast Cafe
518 East Hennepin Ave.
612.331.4544

Coffee Crawl Tuesday: Taraccino Coffee

Taraccino Coffee: I'm here nearly every day because it's across the street from my office. What can I say about a place that's so familiar? The decor is unremarkable. The coffee is great. (Taraccino is one of the few places I frequent that offers a medium roast.) It recently came under new ownership, but besides seeing some new faces behind the cash register I haven't noticed any big changes. Before I started this experiment, it never bothered me that Taraccino shares retail space with a Bruegger's franchise. Now, I can smell a bagel being toasted, and I covet it.

Taraccino Coffee
224 E. Hennepin Ave.
612.617.0292

Coffee Crawl Monday: Aster Cafe

I've walked past the Aster Cafe hundreds of times, but this is the first time I've been in. It won't be the last. The place is gorgeous. Soft lighting. Leather sofas. A piano in the corner, currently sitting idle. Outside, on the fenced-in patio, a trio of lumberjackish men are talking quietly. Without beard or flannel to keep me warm, I thought it best to stay indoors. Though the Aster Cafe has sandwiches, soups, desserts, beer, and wine, I'm drinking just a cup of coffee. (It's only ten-thirty. I stopped boozing in the morning when I stopped teaching high school.)

Unfortunately, the place is nearly empty. I reckon I've caught them between the morning and the noon rush. The only other customers are a pair of fiftysomething women, both wearing dangly jewelry and outdated hairstyles. They look like middle-school art teachers; I can't tell what they're drinking.

Aster Cafe
125 Main Street SE
612-379-3138

Northeast Coffee Crawl

Last December, Slate Magazine published an article claiming that Starbucks actually helps mom and pop coffeehouses succeed. By creating greater general demand for coffee, the Seattle-based giant has boosted everybody's business.

I don't totally buy this story. Still, there are plenty of places to get a decent cup in Minneapolis, and to celebrate that, I'm going to hit up a different place every day this week. I'll start at the Aster Cafe (125 Main Street SE) and work my way northeast. Here's the tentative agenda:

Monday: Aster Cafe
Tuesday: Taraccino Coffee (224 East Hennepin Ave.)
Wednesday: Wilde Roast Cafe (518 East Hennepin Ave.)
Thursday: Diamonds Coffee Shop (1618 Central Ave. NE)
Friday: ?????????

According to EnergyFiend.com, it would take 85.71 cups of coffee to kill me. I'll try to enjoy in moderation.

So Long, Independent Druggists

Thanks to Frodo for sending me this New York Times story about the disappearance of independent drugstores! Read it. And weep.

Hint and you shall receive

Histamine problem solved!

My mom called this morning. She and my dad are visiting this weekend. In addition to being the world's best house guests (knowing that I neither cook nor clean, they are bringing their own sheets, their own towels, and a lasagna), they are also delivering a big ol' box of Alavert, purchased on the cheap at the biggest big box store of them all: Super WalMart.

It's not cheating if I didn't request it. Right?

Queen Bee

Burch Pharmacy and Gifts is one of the last independent drugstores still standing in Minneapolis. It may actually be the last. I strenuously hope that isn't the case, not because I'm nostalgic* or sentimental**, but because Burch's crappy selection of health and beauty products is cramping my experiment. I went there this evening in search of moisturizer and allergy medication. The moisturizer, they didn't have. The allergy medication, they did, but the cost seemed outrageous considering the everyday low price my mom gets on jumbo boxes of the stuff at Wal-Mart.

As a stand-in for my tried and true SPF 15 moisturizer, I bought a jar of "day creme with royal jelly" that's "98.20% natural," whatever that means. Wikipedia says royal jelly is a "bee secretion", so, like, who wouldn't want to smear it all over their face? I'll forgo the allergy medication until I find a better supplier or until my sinuses rupture, whichever comes first. In the meantime, if you see Freddy Krueger blowing his seasonally allergic nose, don't be alarmed. It's probably just me, disfigured by my day cream. At least fedoras are in this season.

*I'm not remotely geriatric enough to remember when local drugstores were the norm, though I think I've seen them a time or two on the teevee set.

**I am a cold-hearted capitalist.

Central Perk

Today's Wi-Fi connection (full disclosure: I have broadband at home and at my office, and it's provided by Qwest) comes to us courtesy of The Boiler Room Cafe on south Third Avenue. It's my version of Central Perk. No Gunther, though. According to Wikipedia, he's still coasting on his Friends fame:

Mojtaba Asadian started a "Central Perk" franchise, registering the name in 32 countries. The decor of his coffee houses is inspired by that in Friends. James Michael Tyler, who plays Gunther, the Central Perk waiter in love with Rachel, attended the grand opening of the flagship Dubai cafe and is the spokesman for the company.

Evidently, the store has only one other location, in Geneva, which means it's not a chain. Ergo, if I find myself in Switzerland or the 'Emirates during the next 51 weeks, I am sooooooooo stopping in for a latte. Just in case, I'd better hoof it down to an indie salon and get myself a Rachel. I like to be prepared for all eventualities.

Sunscreen

I thought I'd solved my problem when I found an online store with a retail location in Minneapolis. Then I browsed their line of sun-protective swimwear. Not exactly what I was hoping for, but I'll keep it in mind in case I get drafted to swim for Team Islam.

Sink or Swim

My first crisis is now.

I want to learn to swim. To do so, I'm going to have to join a gym. Here's the problem: the only gym I can find that 1) has a pool; 2) is affordable; and 3) is close to my apartment is the YWCA. Even though the YWCA is a "nonprofit membership association" and not a for-profit company, it has many of the characteristics of a chain. So of course I should steer clear of it.

But: dragging myself to the gym is difficult under any circumstances. Why make myself less likely to go by enrolling in some distant fitness center? And also: a friend has generously offered to give me swimming lessons, with one caveat: I have to do my learnin' at her pool. Where does she swim? The Y.

So that's that.

I'm also going to need a new swimming suit, something sportier and less mortifying than the American flag-patterned tankini I already own. I managed to locate two non-chain swimwear shops in the Twin Cities. The first, Pure Blue Swim Shop, is in Plymouth. The bus doesn't go there. It does, however, go to Rah Sports in Richfield. Unfortunately, my phone call to Rah was answered by a machine, and the company's laughable website makes me wonder whether the store exists at all.

My first lesson is Sunday.

Guten Food

I'm blogging tonight from The Black Forest Inn, or, as I like to call it, the Douche Burger*. I'll be waiting tables there through the end of Oktoberfest, so if you want me to botch your order and spill beer on you, you'd better stop in soon. The free public Wi-Fi is one of the best-kept secrets in the Twin Cities. (Don't tell the college students. Those guys tip even worse than the elderly.)

A cold beer awaits, and it's well-deserved: this evening, I waited on both students and senior citizens. Best tipper of the night? Girlfriend of a middle-aged man with a handlebar mustache.


*I stole this phrase from the patrons, who mispronounce "Deutschburger Casserole"** with hilarious frequency.
**This item tastes like dog food. The Black Forest serves many fine German dishes, but this isn't one of them.

Organic Nanners

After a late lunch/early dinner at Pracna ("the oldest restaurant on the oldest street in Minneapolis"), I biked over to The Wedge for some overpriced produce. The expense was worth it: while I was browsing the bulk goods aisle, I bumped baskets with a guy who looked just like Mr. T.

Life Takes Visa

My new Visa card arrived in the mail today. I thought it would be prudent to apply for one, as independent retailers usually just shrug when I whip out the AmEx. Don't they know it's endorsed by celebrities?

Day 1 of 365: The First Non-Chain Purchase

My first act of non-chain consumerism wasn't much of a challenge. I bought a loaf of bread, a bag of cat food, a bottle of Gatorade, and a box of Cheez-Its at Third Avenue Food Market, just down the block from my building. I shop there all the time. To the novice Third Ave Marketeer, the place might seem a little shady: it's grimy, poorly-lit, and located just north of a corner where a person who was so inclined could probably find a crack whore, or some crack. But the staff is wonderful, and much-beloved by neighborhood association-types because they keep the sidewalk clean and contribute food for local events. In addition to selling groceries, Third Avenue Market also pedals gyros, has a copy machine, and rents out videos. I have to love it.

Consumerist Manifesto

Starting today, I'm giving up chain stores for a year. Retail. Food. Entertainment. If it's a chain, it's going to have to live without my business until September 1st, 2009. I've set some criteria for myself:

1. If a store has more than three locations, I'm calling it a chain. This number is arbitrary.
2. Franchises count. A Burger King that is locally owned and operated is still a Burger King. The food, the store design, and the customer experience are essentially the same at every location.
3. Ownership doesn't count. Example: Restaurateur Tom Pham owns several restaurants in the Twin Cities, but each is unique. They have different names, different menus, and different decor. So if I want to stumble over to Azia for some cranberry puffs and a refreshing glass of liquor, I totally can.
4. Sponsorship doesn't matter. I can attend events sponsored by anyone and everyone, just as long as the event doesn't take place inside a chain store.
5. Internet shopping is a cop-out. This experiment is about the diversity of our experiences. There are few things more ordinary than eating and shopping, and we make them still more ordinary by frequenting chain stores, which are engineered to deliver the same experience every time, to every customer, at every location. Shopping at chains is boring, but at least it offers the chance of running into an acquaintance, being rammed by the cart of a fellow shopper, or hitting it big when you slip on an unmarked wet floor and sue K-Mart for ten million dollars. The most exciting side effects of internet shopping are eye fatigue and credit card debt.

I may establish more criteria as the experiment continues and issues that I didn't have the foresight to predict arise. For now, these should cover it. This project also has some natural parameters:

1. Money: I'm not rolling in it. While I'm willing to cough up a little extra to shop small and local, there is a limit to what I can spend. Part of the fun of this project is in seeing how feasible it is for an average person to avoid shopping at chain stores.
2. Distance: I don't own a car. If a store isn't bikeable or bus-able, it isn't doable.
3. Time: I'll try to make enough of it to carry out this project. I may not always succeed. I hope the whens, whys, and hows of my inevitable failures will be instructive.