Cafés and consumer boycotts (and consumers boycotting cafés)

They were not true pub-crawlers, who are content to spend hour upon hour in slow tippling and silent reverie in a tavern. No, these two were merely visitors, who went to taverns only for the sake of daily arguments, and once there, cared not a whit about what they ate or drank, minding only what was said. They would have sat around in a tavern forever, if it were a matter of relating some heroic adventure, especially if they were able to weave themselves into the ramifications of the narrative.

Gyula Krudy, ‘The Journalist and Death’

There are few things I like better than frittering away my afternoons in cafes, comfortably ensconced in armchair with book, bottomless cups of coffee coming my way. So imagine my dismay to discover the other day that Antresol, a café that had quickly become my favourite here, has closed down and is being turned into something else. I’ve suddenly lost one of the only places that cater to solo café-goers like myself. The place had a real readers’ atmosphere as well, with comfortable couches, and plenty of books on display, both for purchasing and perusalising.

If there’s one thing that has changed about Kyiv over the past five years, it has to be the quality of the coffee. To be fair, before the 5 days I spent here over the summer, I only had a whopping 3 days under my belt in Kyiv. Two of those were spent in the icily cold early January frost in 2006 with my sister, and we spent the majority of our time slipping and sliding our way from museum to café to museum. The other was a day later that spring, when I came for Ukraine v Costa Rica in a pre-World Cup friendly. Back then there weren’t so many nice cafes and the quality of the coffee was absolutely dire. So in that regards, things have changed for the better.

Though have they? There’s been a proliferation of chains over the past few years with Coffee House, Coffee Time and Double Coffee (which we had in Riga) all springing up. All seem to model themselves on the Costa/Nero/Pret-a-Manger model, with moderately comfortable seating and a choice of coffees in various sizes. Unfortunately, the quality is iffy, and the coffee is ridiculously overpriced. A small cup of black Americano comes in at about $2.50, and milk or cream will cost you an extra $1. Contrast that with Starbucks’ $1.50 offering with 50 cent refills. I’m not saying that Starbucks is that great, but I like their coffee and I appreciate places where you can sit for hours on end without getting funny looks from people or hassled to leave before your time is up.

However, the quality and selection at other places is fairly decent. There’s Teatr Kavi Kaffa within spitting distance of the school and the coffee there is outstanding, and moderately-priced. There are loads of portable coffee wagons around town selling cheaper coffee in paper cups – an Americano with milk is a mere $1. And though one or two others disagree with me, the quality isn’t bad and is perfect if you’re on the go, or want to enjoy a coffee in the park. But I’ve yet to find too many quaint, cosy places that cater to layabouts like me.

Hence my disappointment to find Antresol closed. I almost wanted to cry.

Here we go again: more drolleries from the past

A similar thing happened while I was living in Riga a few years ago. Two of the city’s nicest establishments inexplicably shut down. One was called Casablanca, and was the scene of a disastrously messy – in a very good and fun way – birthday night out in my honour (from what I remember, it was a great night out). Months later it re-opened as a swank, white-leather clad cocktailish lounge/overpriced restaurant. That was the general trend in Riga: pleasant, affordable places seemed to be slowly winding down operations in favour of posh new places for the fast emerging nouveau riche scene.

There was another place that I particular grew to love, though for a while I had (regrettably perhaps?) boycotted it. Those who know me best know how much l love boycotting establishments, whether shops, restaurants or cafes. You could even call it a sordid hobby of mine.

For the life of me I can’t remember the name of this place, but I do remember it was a wonderful locale for ‘brunch’, not that that’s necessarily my thing. I guess the American in me does like the oversized coffees and diner-type breakfast places where the coffee is best drunk black (a la Dale Cooper), and where the refills keep on coming. This was one such place. I forget why I decided to boycott them, but when it comes to boycotts, sometimes the more trivial the reason, the more absurdly enjoyable the boycott is. I believe it was with my sister when a meal was meant to come with ‘home-fries’ and they tried to charge me extra for mine, refusing to bend when I made the requisite complaint. Boycott!

Previously, this diner had offered up a tantalizingly possibility of what might have been. It was early October and I’d only been in Riga for about 6 weeks at that point. My editor and mentor, the G-Man, was in town and we were whiling away a gorgeous sunny Sunday morning when I spotted a lovely young thing on her own, reading at a table. Few things get me more excited than seeing a woman on her own reading in a café. Goaded on by the G-Man, I approached and gave her my number. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to put the ball in her court, but she had to have been impressed by my gall, and the fact that I gave her no chance to respond. I thrust my number in her face, told her to call me, and left it at that. It’s a bit of a passive aggressive approach, I guess you could say.

Mysteriously, a few days later, I did get a text message. The message was unreadable, coming across as a slew of question marks, with random letters interspersed. In asking a few friends what this meant, I was told that this tends to happen when people send Cyrillic messages to ancient phones like mine which can’t handle such technological advances. I was a bit baffled, because I was about 95% certain this woman was Latvian, not Russian, and she knew that I was an English speaker.

Either way, I responded to these cryptic messages, only to get similar ones back. I then tried to call, and for a while without any luck. When I eventually did get through, I was met with a gruff male Russian voice, and I had no idea what this not-so-friendly chap was trying to say to me. Probably something like ‘if you try and contact my Latvian girlfriend again, I will come and chop off your whatsits’. I thus gave up, a defeated man. Still, the mystery was fun while it lasted, even if in retrospect it barely seems like a story.

Anyway, many months later, and just weeks after I’d lifted the boycott, it closed down for good. The plan was to reopen it as a – you guessed it – swank cocktail bar for the uber-rich. Damn progress.

A not-so brief interlude on consumer boycotts from the past

We’re not talking just the biggies like Nestle and Starbucks. I definitely went through my Nestle ‘phase’ though I still do my damndest to buy fair trade when I can. I go more for the silly, seemingly inconsequential boycotts. For example, Spar. I boycotted them for quite some when I was studying at Edinburgh because they refused to accept student vouchers for the Guardian. Boycott! Whilst working in the John Hancock tower in Boston all those years ago, I was given a Canadian quarter in change one morning in the lobby shop. The very next day, when trying to pay with that very same quarter, the man refused to accept it. Boycott! My colleagues at the time quickly got into this boycotting thing and everyone kept trying to outdo each other with new boycotts. Some of them were just plain absurd: ‘the newspaper hawker at the station didn’t smile at me, boycott!’ and ‘my Coke was flat in the cafeteria, boycott!’. But for the legitimate boycotts…God help you if anyone caught you violating it. Any offenders were tarred, feathered and ostracised on the work floor. In fact, just days after launching a one-month boycott of the lobby shop, a colleague was caught purchasing a newspaper and was shunned by all of us for a few days. Admittedly, one of the most amusing parts of this particular boycott was how seriously we all took it, many of us complaining of the hassle involved in not being able to use the shop. It was the only place in the building to buy a newspaper and certain sweets.

Here’s one of my all-time favourites though. As ashamed of myself as I am for doing this, I’m actually going to quote myself from a previous blog entry. This was just over a year ago, when I had recently started my course at Keene. This came under the heading of things I’d learnt being back at university in America:

That there are some main streets yet to be invaded by Starbucks. And that not everywhere in America features over-the-top, fake customer service.

The other day at the Brewbaker Café, I was interested in a scone or a bagel. It was 3.30pm:
Me: ‘Have you got anymore scones or bagels?’
Girl: ‘Uh, this isn’t lunchtime, lunchtime was 3 hours ago, we’re not serving food anymore’. (there were decrepit, stale-looking muffins behind the counter)
Me: ‘Oh, sorry, I just haven’t eaten in a while. I’ll just have a coffee then’.
Girl: ‘This isn’t Starbucks you know’.
Me: ‘What, so I can’t have a coffee either?
Girl: ‘You can, you just can’t have any food’.
Me: ‘Fine, a small coffee then’. Which was lousy and lukewarm. I’m now boycotting this place. Surly bitch. I didn’t realise that Starbucks had a monopoly on selling food outside of regular mealtimes.

Funnily enough, this place and another one called Prime Roast quickly became my favourite coffeeshops. There wasn’t a huge selection in Keene with its one Main Street, but I can say in all honesty that these are two of the finest places I’ve ever frequented in my life. Both featured excellent coffee, great selections, cheerful ambience, a good reading atmosphere and, despite this blip at the Brewbaker Café, pleasant customer service. In fact, when I lifted my boycott of the Brewbaker a few weeks later, that stroppy woman was no longer there and the remaining staff was affable and pleasant. I became a regular in both places and was duly rewarded with the occasional free coffee and muffin.

To sum up: these boycotts probably accomplish nothing. But for whatever reason, they are fun. And yes, I do realise how sad that sounds.

In the meantime, I’ll stick to Kyiv’s bars and pubs, where coffee is available, but the beer is much cheaper. You’ve got to love any country where the beer is cheaper than soda, water, tea, coffee and non-alcoholic beer. I can content myself with this.

HOWEVER…a place here has just gone onto my boycott list. And this time it’s serious: I’ve put it on the permanent blacklist of boycotts. And all the juicy details will be revealed in my next post. Stay tuned.