"Where is our Empire, Momma?"

Killing time before Regency Branch library opened the other day, I stumbled across an interesting little place in a new and nearly empty strip located kind of behind Home Depot and kind of in front of Regency Square Mall and kind of beside the Regency AMC 24. Empire Coffee is a new, independently owned coffee house that's been open for just over three weeks. Neil, a co-owner, told me that they are desperately looking for amateur artists to fill up their bare walls and live performers to fill everyone's hearts with vanilla flavored syrup. More or less anyway, I might be paraphrasing. The coffee's good, the people are nice, they have good magazines on the table, and I'm all about this over Starbucks for a change. Their specific address and hours are located on their MySpace.



This got me thinking about the lack of independently owned whatevers in my area. Okay, no, that isn't true. The lack of interesting, well-kept, worth my time independently owned whatevers. All I'm saying is that I can't think of anywhere other than Five Points, San Marco, the Beaches, and the Urban Jungle where I can go to directly support someone's business in style. Sure, you've got your used bookstore (smelly piles upon piles of bad condition romance novels) every once in a while, a CD store (with 34 copies of Britney's first album and a poster of Yanni on the wall) here and there, and maybe even a 'unique gifts' shop (potpourri filled wicker baskets on tables that even your creepy sixth grade English teacher would despise) around every other corner, but what good does this do me? How are these places even still in business? The exception, as to be expected, are little hole in the wall restaurants and such, but that is IT, folks.
Do something about it, because I'm too broke from paying too much for gas to get me to the good stuff.

-Apathetic Arlington