another one about fort worth

what? i kind of live here now. i take the city that i live in very seriously.

in this post i'm complaining so bear with me.

everyone who knows me moderately well knows that i appreciate a good cup of coffee. they may also know that i thoroughly enjoy and spend most of my time in good coffee shops, or at least i do when they're present. you see my friends, in the last year three of fort worth's four independently owned coffee shops closed down. we very recently lost the best of them all, eurotazza. i didn't get to enjoy eurotazza as much as i would have liked because it was too far away for even a weekly visit. the only coffee shop other than starbucks still open is four star coffee bar located downtown. again, the location is the obstacle to my enjoyment. there's no way i'm cruising downtown just for a coffee shop every week. it's not even that nice.

for the sake of comparison i counted the number of indie coffee shops in austin and it numbered around forty (there could be more because i kinda gave up counting.) there is one in fort worth, which is a city of over 700,000 people mind you. college station has at least four that i can think of off the top of my head. so, college station has 400% more indie coffe shops that ftw at least, and austin has 4000% more. i think that's right, i'm no elementary mathemetician.

this is upsetting to me. there are seven starbucks in my local area. that there are nearly no non-corporate coffee shops in the city of fort worth while there are 10 starbucks tells me this; the people in this town drink coffee but they have no understanding of the value of the local coffee shop. they don't get it. i have observed that fort worth in general is relatively void of any locally owned businesses. where is the creativity? where is the challenge or initiative? where is the pride in one's place of residence? the city of austin however, time and time again asserts that they do their business their way. there's little desire for the manufactured, packaged, mass-marketed comfort of the universal product or storefront. the locals do it best for the locals. pride, creativity, authenticity, entrepreneurship.

i'm not anti-corporation. i'm sitting in a starbucks right now (obviously i have no choice,) i bought my shirt at old navy, and my hoodie at target. i'm fairly corporate. i am wearing simple brand shoes though. i can appreciate a capitalist economy in which the more succesful business is able to produce the product more efficiently and sell it cheaper than the next guy. this is bigger than the large-box corporations though. this is dependent upon the local consumer. this is a state of mind prevalent within a large population. it scares me. does anybody else care?? and i can't recommend that anyone else try to open a coffee shop or any other small business because it probably will not be sustained by local consumers. small business is not viable in fort worth.

this is obviously not just about coffee shops. to me the coffee shop crisis is indicative of much more. it represents a state of mind.