Nearby coffee
People who've stayed with me have generally noticed fairly quickly one serious flaw in my hospitality: I'm not good at keeping good coffee on hand. I don't drink coffee, and I often forget to obtain it when guests are coming.
Furthermore, until recently I was unable to tell guests where near my place they could find coffee.
This flaw has been remedied recently, though: a Starbucks has opened within a ten-minute walk from my house.
I'm a little uncertain as to why they thought it was a good location. Two supermarkets have failed in that little shopping center over the past few years; there's now a third one (a Chinese grocery) there, but I don't know how well it's doing. The specific location of the new Starbucks is where a little independent video store used to be; the video store has moved across the parking lot to what I think is a slightly smaller location. There's a haircut place and a laundromat and a dry cleaner and a liquor store and a taqueria (the sit-down branch of the famed La Costeña) there, and they all seem to do okay; but even so, it doesn't strike me as the kind of high-traffic area where a Starbucks would do well.
But for what it's worth, it's there. So next time you visit me and you need a known-quantity source of coffee, you'll know.
