Cafes as disappearing third places

I recently noticed an editorial from the St. Anthony Park Bugle which merits comment.

I am not sure what prompted it, but suspect that the recent closing of the Parkview Café at Hampden and Raymond had something to do with it, since there is a larger article about both the history and the future of the building where it was.

The writer notes the disappearances of “third places,” of which cafés are a prime instance and notes the general disappearance of independently-owned businesses.

Independently owned small businesses are threatened everywhere, and along the main streets of small and not-so-small towns, the local café often serves as a canary in the coal mine of chain-store-ification that has seen the locus of activity move from the center to the edges of town,

He also notes that although cafés seem to be disappearing in urban areas that coffee shops are plentiful and notes some important distinctions between them.

You can get coffee in a café, but typically the only choice is between regular and decaf. Unlike coffee shops, cafés don’t have Wi-Fi. People come to eat and talk, not to stare at a laptop.

and later notes

Like a good neighborhood, a good café has character — and characters. It doesn’t have to be a place where everyone knows your name, but it should be somewhere you’re comfortable, and somewhere you’re proud to bring a visitor.

To me a café seems like a place more for a community’s common people and coffee shops for its pretentious, and considering what part of the city the Bugle covers, I found this editorial a bit surprising and indeed welcome.

I would recommend the entire editorial to everybody’s attention and suggest that it provides us all with food for thought.