Locked doors and dark windows

I stopped by my local coffeehouse today, the one I’ve blogged from before, looking to kill a little time while waiting for a prescription to be filled. It’s a great little spot overlooking a creek where friends and I meet most Thursday nights to compete in a little low stakes trivia. They made a great little chicken mozzarella sandwich, sold books and had good coffee. But today their parking lot was empty, and, while it didn’t mean anything at the time, it dawned on me when the door was locked and the windows were dark that something was wrong. Then I saw the notice in the window- business closed, if you had unused gift cards you could mail them in for a refund.

Damn.
I’ll confess I hadn’t been there at all since early December and so missed the announcement (if there was one at all). There was a change of ownership earlier in the year, and before that the place had vacated about 2/3rds of their original space which had been primarily a bookstore. It’s tough for small independent places to compete with places like Amazon and this place was off the two main shopping streets in a small town, so I shouldn’t be surprised if they got less foot traffic and tourist business than the core of our downtown area (which for locals like me was nice). But still, it seemed like they were doing a pretty good amount of business, but I guess you never really know what the books like. Especially since the bulk of purchases were probably only five bucks or so.

There are other places in town to go for coffee and another trivia night (though it’s at a local bar). My friends and I will still hang out (I’ve already made plans to host a game night this week in lieu of trivia) but I’ll miss the place. Fingers crossed that a similar place can open up in that spot and succeed. I know I’ll do my part to support it.

I already spent New Year’s Eve and Day (and the day after) sick with a tenacious cold, and was feeling better today, but this was a little tough. Here’s hoping this isn’t some harbinger of things to come in 2015.