It was a snowy, blustery, cold day and I picked up our daughter from Middle School. We had 45 minutes to kill before her hair appointment, so where did we head? To the local Brecksville Starbucks, of course! We love it there. While I am not a fan of national chain retail stores, Starbucks is an exception -- their coffee, employees and ambiance are first rate. While there are other local coffee shops that I frequent and really enjoy on occasion, Brecksville has Starbucks. The best part is when my daughter orders her favorite coffee drink. The Starbucks attendant loves it, too, and always remembers it, though maybe not the last detail-a tall, skinny, ½ decaf, vanilla latte, with caramel. A shot of caramel or a drizzle? A shot--you got it. My order is sooo much easier-a tall, caramel macchiato, please. The two cups are made and there are about 59 letters written on the side of her cup and 2 on mine-what a hoot!
So, that was yesterday around 3:00 and today at 10:00 I am sitting in the same spot waiting for my tires to be rotated on the car over at Lastoria's BP station (another fabulous local auto repair facility), which is a very short walk from Starbucks. I decided this time I would get real work done while enjoying the now very sunny, but still very cold day.
This is the beauty of Brecksville-the center of town is where all the action is, so to speak, and it makes life a little more efficient and way more fun. I mean, if I am still waiting for my car at lunch time and become very hungry, I can take a walk to Einstein Bagels across the street or to Heinen's, one of the two local supermarkets, and load up on a great salad from their salad bar or even a stir fry from there super, fantastic wok bar. Mind you it is about 0 degrees outside, but the sun is shining so brightly I just might do it!
The other really nice thing about setting up shop in Starbucks, is that there are so many really nice people coming in and out. Everyone smiles, the staff is super nice, and the music is, well, it depends on your taste-music is such a subjective thing! After I picked out my table, I had a momentary anxiety attack when I could not find my cell phone (you know what I mean!) and the man sitting at the table next to me, offered his phone to me before I even knew what he was doing. Well, I found mine in my coat pocket buried under my gloves, so all was well with the world.
He and I then talked about "back in the day" when we didn't have cell phones and how kids these days will never experience the 50 cent (or 25 cent, for those who remember that) public phone booth, especially the search for one when you really needed to make a call. I guess that would be comparable to my cell phone anxiety attack this morning.
Oh, and what about having a nice, hot, "regular" cup of coffee? Never!! It has to be a tall, skinny, ½ decaf, vanilla latte, with caramel! I mean, really, how many places can whip up one of those? And surely, kids these days would rather have their eyelashes pulled out one by one then be seen sipping coffee in any place other than Starbuck's, except maybe Arabica or Caribou.
Oh, but I digress; back to the original intent of this post which is that Brecksville is a great place to live and I thoroughly enjoy some of the, perhaps not fancy, but all important conveniences. I also enjoy the fact that because the town is not huge, not even big by other suburban standards, I get to know people. As a matter of fact, Don Lastoria, the owner of the service station (Lastoria's BP) just called and said my car was done...how's that for service? I sat down at 10:00 and am now leaving at 11:15, after drinking a nice cup of coffee-not just any ol' coffee-but an African blend which was mighty tasty, I enjoyed conversation and smiles, and I finished writing this post. I would say this was a lovely, productive morning in the town of Brecksville.
Content and photo copyrighted by Chris Olsen and protected by CopyScape.
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