In recent years, it seems as though all the truly great cities have come to adopt a cafe culture where none had existed before. Not in the U.S. at least. Hanging out at coffee shops has been a great national past time, but in earlier generations, most cities had only donut shops and all-night restaurants to offer places for night owls to go to discuss the important business of the world. Even more than bars, coffee houses have always had reputations for being the meeting place where people could solve the problems of the world. Coffee shops, unlike bars, always left the conspirators hopped up and ready to make decisions after the conversations were over.
The development of our contemporary fixation with coffee has a lot of debt to pay to Seattle, where so much of what we recognize as a cafe planted its roots. Of course, these shops were always based on European models, at least in theory. There are vast differences, because there isn’t such a tradition for food here. Except when we get to Nashville, a very hospitable place by any standards, and have the wonderful opportunity to spend some time at Bongo Java . This is a local phenomenon, and quite famous all over the world, and has much more than your usual hip coffee shop.
Except it is as hip as they can get, with a number of locations that are all unique and all pretty wonderful. It all began in 1993, with a single location started by Bob Bernstein, a Chicago journalist who made a wrong turn in the right direction. Today, there are several locations, and the coffee houses also have splendid food, ranging from full breakfasts to fish tacos. The coffee roaster is still a central attraction, although the theatre is also a big addition to local culture, as well as a vegetarian kosher cafe. This is a Bongo World , and a rather pleasant one at that.
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