We have been in that strange place, out of our element, in a place we have driven by a hundred times on a highway, and maybe stopped for a dinner with some local friends, carefully following their directions. But this time, I have driven through the town myself, in need of a coffee stop, with limited time, on the way to a meeting at a local office. I have to deposit a couple of checks at my mega-bank's local branch, and with the help of a gps unit, I land in Downtown Santa Rosa.
Many years ago, this beautiful town's downtown added a freeway and a mall with its own off ramp. I ended up here, in the completely redeveloped downtown area in which some number of older family operations were probably forced to close while the larger corporate restaurants and other retail establishments have attempted to settle in to this region that has been hit hard by the banking collapse of 2008, much of the new house owners underwater in debt. These economic cycles wreak havoc on the smaller businesses, pushing them out as leases come up, allowing the corporate restaurants, bars, and coffee chains to move in with their economic muscle.
At this very corner, sit three coffee houses... sort of. Arrigoni's sits on the NE corner, but has been in the business of breakfast and lunch for many years, with its checkered tablecloths, and large eating area filled with round tables for four. Pete's Coffee, a SF Bay area original, has been here for at least 12 years, probably much longer, before it became a publicly traded company, and a much larger corporate entity than its original roots ever were laid.
The last cafe, is actually a Starbucks, in a Barnes and Noble Bookstore, that at one time was a real independent bookstore before the rise of Amazon and the old, brick-and-mortar mega store, Borders, dominated the market, pushing smaller independents into oblivion. The other mega store, Barnes and Noble, with it's former emphasis on best sellers, bargains, pulp fiction and coffee table gift books, is what Santa Rosa was stuck with. Perhaps Barnes has changed since it is the only brick and mortar chain left standing. My half brother, Daniel Rodgers, 27, actually worked in more than a couple of bookstore cafés on Cape Cod and in Los Angeles, slinging Starbucks espresso at a B&N a few years back. It was a job. Pleasant, clean, do they offer insurance? But Starbucks Coffee has become the post Modern equivalent of Winchell's donuts or McDonalds for the coffee industry, one step up from the one pound can of coffee that my parents drank from for years.
If I had to choose one of these places, I ended up at Pete's pleading brand loyalty from an earlier day when Pete's was that proud small chain of 10-15 Bay Area stores that made deep rich, chocolate flavored dark roast that kept you up all day on just 12 ounces. I ordered a macchiato, and I must report that their espresso drinks are always better than Starbucks, and even stand up well to a number of cafés that I have explored in my neighborhood in the City. The problem with Pete's and another chain out of Seattle, Tully's, is that they have been forced by their shareholders to compete with Starbucks by creating a homogenized cafe experience that makes each of their interiors indistinguishable (more on this issue later - and why I absolutely have come to deplore Starbuck's culture marketing in so many ways). The saving grace, at least, is the coffee at Pete's is far superior.
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