Some Cresco restaurants I just don’t understand. Take the Dough & Joe, for instance. Under other circumstances this would be one of my all-time favorite places to eat. It is an honest-to-goodness coffee house in downtown Cresco. It serves all the drinks a coffee shop is supposed to serve, from coffee blends with exotic names, like “East Asian Arabica Coffee With Belgian Hazelnuts” to my personal favorite, Chai tea.
If that weren’t enough, the place also has a better selection of patries and baked goods than most other places I’ve seen. I’ve walked through the door of Dough & Joe a few times, and whenever I go through the door I’m greeted with the smells of doughnuts, fresh-baked bread and the occasional cake, the smells of which are more tempting than Scarlett Johansson holding a lotus. Under almost any other circumstance, I would willingly go there after I finished work and just hang out in the restaurant until it closed. I would bring my laptop, too, and compose blog entry after blog entry of observant, yet witty, statements, to be adored by my legion of about twenty fans.
The only thing is, there are two problems standing in my way. First, the Dough & Joe doesn’t accept credit cards. So it’s cash or nothing. This isn’t too big of a problem, but during those times I think of going in for a cup of Chai and a bagel, I’m a lot less likely to go in if I have to drive over to an ATM first.
The second problem is, the place is open during business hours. By business hours, I mean it’s not open past 5 pm. This can work on Saturday, provided I’m around, but when we’re talking about doing something for an evening other than sitting around my apartment and wondering what to do between dinner and the Daily Show, I wouldn’t mind spending some time in a coffee shop. Besides, the only other place to go for coffee is one of the gas stations. I suppose if I really wanted to, I could drive to, Decorah to hang out at one of the coffee shops there. The thing is, I don’t want to drive a half-hour to hang out for a couple hours, then drive a half-hour back again. This is in many ways a crying shame.
In all fairness, I would be less testy about this if it hadn’t been for the fact that I went out for a run on Saturday, ended near the Dough & Joe about five minutes to five, and realized that while I could have really gone for something in the caffeine-based drink department, it was impossible to do so without having to go to the ATM, which was at least five minutes away. While opinions may differ, I am a firm believer that a visit to a coffee shop is something that just happens. If you have to plan a trip to a coffee shop, you should at least have some friends meet you there. Otherwise, you have to plan a single trip to a coffee shop, and if you do you may come face to face with the realization that visiting a coffee shop is an important enough event in your life that you need to plan for it, and even considering that makes me sad beyond words.
No comments:
Post a Comment