The Great Good Place

Caramba Cafe is closed again.  We got the news via Facebook on either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, I can't remember which.  We went there last Friday night and again on Tuesday.  We tried to make it there early both evenings because we expected them to be busy.  On Friday night, when I took the picture above, they weren't so busy yet, but on Tuesday night we got the last table that was available; there were several multifamily groups there already and they kept coming - all of us wanting one last dinner at Caramba.

Caramba Cafe used to be in Morningside, where Timone's now is, and we used to walk there.  They closed in 2010, and when they reopened on Decatur Street, some of the Morningside regular customers became regulars there.  There were people we saw there almost every time we went.  We saw our neighbor Marian there frequently, and Caroline's reading teacher from early elementary school and his wife seemed to be there all the time.  I've taken out of town colleagues there for dinner and margaritas, and we've had dinner there before being dropped off at Irwin Street for the last two lantern parades on the Beltline (this one and this one).  We continued to celebrate birthdays and report cards and the girls coming home from college there.  I celebrated the last couple of my birthdays with shots of tequila with Mia.  We took our German exchange student there several times during the six weeks or so that he was at our house; he discovered that he really liked fajitas.  There were kids there Iain's age who he'd gone to elementary school with, and the two of them would wander off to talk to other high school kids who were there.  Sometimes we sat at the bar and talked to people we didn't know, but more often we were at a table by the window.  We watched one of the protest marches following Michael Brown's death from that window; the kids took off to watch, and I stayed long enough to pay the bill.  There almost always were hugs before we left from George and Rachel and Mia.

A couple of years ago I started reading a book that I never finished, The Great Good Place, by Ray Oldenburg.  (This was one of those books that would have been a great article in The New Yorker or The Atlantic, but there wasn't quite enough for a whole book).  The idea is that the public places that you and your neighbors go to regularly, whether it's a neighborhood tavern or a diner or a coffee shop or a barber shop, are important to neighborhoods and communities.  They are places you can go where they know you, and they facilitate strangers becoming acquaintances and acquaintances becoming friends.  It's a safe environment for sociability in a society where many people live alone or are far away from family and may not know their neighbors.

Back when I was reading this book, the example from my own experience that kept coming to mind was Caramba Cafe.  This was our family's great good place, and we are going to miss it very much.  If there's a great good place in your life, go there often and take your friends.  Appreciate it with your presence and your patronage.  

The last night we went to Caramba - the next to the last night they were open - I went through the piles of books next to my bed, looking for this one.  I was going to give it to Mia, but couldn't find it. 

Best of luck to la familia Caramba, and to all of us who felt at home there.

A Dog in the House

At my house, I am almost always the first one up in the morning.  For years, the morning routine was when I come downstairs, the first thing I would do was feed the dog -- our gentle, loving, loopy Labrador retriever.  So now, when I come downstairs in the dark, I still expect to hear his feet on the hardwood floor, his demands for food or water or being let outside or for attention, but it's quiet.  A few weeks ago, while Iain and I were both out of the country, Bullwinkle died.  He had cancer, and we all knew the time was coming.  Iain had a chance to say goodbye via Skype.  Since then we've talked a little about getting another dog, but it seems like it's too soon, like getting married again right after a divorce.

A couple weeks ago we had invited over some neighbors for dinner.  Scott was out of town, but Robyn came and Pawel and Carolina came too.  When Carolina emailed me to ask what they could bring, I cc:d Tom on my response, which was that they didn't need to bring anything, but if they wanted to bring something they could bring a bottle of wine.  To which Tom replied, "Also bring your dog.  Ours died this week and it will be nice to have a canine guest."  We'd gotten to know Lorenzo, Pawel and Carolina's golden retriever, at a recent block party.  So, fine.

That night we cooked pizza in the backyard pizza oven and traded stories.  It was a nice evening, and at some point Tom said to Pawel and Carolina, if you ever need someone to look after Lorenzo, let us know.  They looked surprised and replied, well, if you're serious about that, we're going to Savannah for the 4th of July.  Tom said he absolutely meant it and we'd be happy to look after Lorenzo.  I actually was a little annoyed that he made this offer with no consultation, given that I figured I would end up doing a good deal of the work over the holiday weekend, but it wasn't that big of a deal.  It couldn't be that much work to have Lorenzo underfoot, and as it turned out we were also feeding Karen and Elise's turtle while they were away, too.

Lorenzo came over on July 3, with his food (in single serving ziplock bags, since he's on a diet), his leash, his emergency contact information, and the essential commands in Spanish that we needed to use before entering the street, since Lorenzo has been trained to not enter the street except on command.  And sometime after that, something unexpected happened.  Everyone in the house -- everyone -- was happier, and we all fell totally in love with Lorenzo.

It wasn't just that he got excited when we returned home, greeting us with an unexpected display of joy (and once he even did it when he woke up and we hadn't gone anywhere; perhaps he dreamed that we'd gone away, so he was happy we were back), or that he'd knock things over to get a tennis ball that the kids would throw for him in the back yard or that he'd snooze at our feet; it was a reminder of what wonderful companions dogs are, how they can read our minds and give us what we need and just be there even when no one else is.

We took pictures.  Caroline's were the best; she posted lots of photos to Facebook and we sent some to Carolina and Pawel, who were having a good time on their vacation.  Here's one of mine:

Caroline's are better.  Here are a few:

This one had a caption, "an educated dog is never without a well-stocked library."

On Monday, Iain asked "when we have to give Lorenzo up."   I told him that Carolina and Pawel would be back on Wednesday.

Wednesday evening I was going out to dinner with an out-of-town colleague who was in Atlanta for a meeting.  I had promised long before that I would take her to my favorite Mexican restaurant that night.  I picked her up from the meeting and we stopped by the house on the way to Caramba (it really wasn't out of the way) so obstensibly so I could make sure Tom remembered I wouldn't be home for dinner but really because I wanted to say goodbye to Lorenzo.  No one but Lorenzo was home and we were greeted with his trademark happy dance.  I told him goodbye and that we'd enjoyed having him with us.  I know that he's a dog and he might not have understood a word I said (and anyway, I'm not sure he knows English) but I needed to say it anyway.

By the time I got back from dinner, Lorenzo had been picked up.  Iain said he put on an extraordinary display of joy when Pawel and Carolina arrived.  They brought us pralines and toffee from Savannah, and a very nice thank you note.  But really, the thanks should be to them.  It's great to have neighbors who -- when you really need one -- will loan you their dog.  

And also neighbors who will bring you your sweater that you left at Caramba.  Later that evening, there was a knock at the door.  It was our neighbor Marian, returning my sweater.

"A Series of Unfortunate Circumstances"

A message from Lynsley one day last week - the new waffle sandwich place that replaced the burger place that replaced the empty space where Caramba used to be - was closed.  The brown paper is back up over the windows.  The notice that is posted on the door refers to "a series of unfortunate circumstances."

Of course I don't know what the specific "unfortunate circumstances" were but thanks to What Now Atlanta we do know about the trademark issues.  There probably was a way around that (pancakes could be substituted for the waffles, perhaps), but there was no way around this restaurant not being a good match for the neighborhood.

This space is in a small commercial area that already includes other restaurants.  There's Doc Chey's, which is a place to take the kids, but you won't linger over green tea after dinner.  There's Rosebud, where you can have your locally sourced chicken with the heirloom tomato salad, but I at least would not take my children there (although I am sure other families do).  There's the Family Dog, which is a popular bar that serves food, but don't even think about asking for the burger without the sauce.  (There was a review on Yelp complaining about the lack of a children's menu there.  Well, okay.)  There's Alon's, which is busy throughout the day with the morning coffee-and-croissants crowd, the lunchtime soup-and-sandwich crowd, and the after work get-something-so-I-don't-have-to-cook-tonight crowd.  The latter group could also get a casserole from Casseroles.

There also is not much parking.  Even with the small lot in front of Alon's, the small lot adjacent to Rosebud, the big lot in front of Doc Chey's, and the small lot behind the former waffle sandwich place, there is still overflow on busy nights to adjacent residential streets.  Which is fine -- I would rather have that than more parking lots -- but the reality is for all these places to be successful, a lot of people need to walk there, which mean they need to be appealing to people in the neighborhood, and worth walking to.

We used to walk to Caramba, when they were in that location.  Even though we might linger at our table, we almost always had margaritas, and I'm sure the owners made money on our visit.  We'd talk to the people at the next table, or visit with friends or neighbors who were sitting at the bar, or wander to the patio to say hello to someone we hadn't seen a while.  We liked the food, but it wasn't just the food.  It was a place where we participated in the social fabric of our neighborhood, and I'm sorry, you're not going to recreate that with waffle sandwiches.  

Yesterday morning, after a successful launch of a 2-liter soda bottle from a PVC pipe attached to a bicycle pump at Sunken Garden Park, Iain and I walked to Alon's to get some croissants.  The outdoor tables there overlook a parking lot and aren't obviously pleasant places to sit, but they were full.  It was late in the morning and things were winding down at the farmers' market across the street, but people were still walking through and lingering a moment to chat with an acquaintance.  Both of these places, Alon's and the farmers' market, are destinations worth going to on a Saturday morning.  We want to go to places where there are people.  And except for the part about launching the 2-liter soda bottle, it's not rocket science.

Coming Soon to My Neighborhood

Thanks to email and all the other ways we stay in touch now, I don't have to be in town to get updates on the neighborhood.  Last week I was out of the country but got an email with the news that Burger Tap, the restaurant that eventually opened in Caramba Cafe's former space on North Highland, was closed and was going to be replaced by Waffold, a gourmet waffle sandwich place.  That Burger Tap closed was not unexpected.  I never went there (illustrating perhaps the most fundamental problem with the business concept) but the on line reviews mentioned small, high-priced burgers and a bright-light, fast food ambiance with non-fast food prices.  This does not seem like a winner of an idea, especially in a neighborhood with so many excellent burger places nearby.  We go to George's or Yeah Burger in Virginia Highland; Tom says that Highland Tap may make the best burgers in town (I haven't been there, either).  The Family Dog (another place I haven't been), across from the former Burger Tap location, has burgers and beer and lots of people, which may have also contributed to the lack of success of the Burger Tap concept.

So...waffle sandwiches.  I am trying to figure out what research could possibly have been done in the neighborhood to make someone decide to put a waffle sandwich restaurant here.  Walking up to people out walking their dogs or on their way to Alon's or the Family Dog or Doc Chey's or the farmer's market and asking them, what kind of restaurant would you come to in the neighborhood?  If someone had asked me, I would say, a neighborhood place, a place you could go to with the kids or with a group of people from the office or later with friends.  Not too expensive -- pizza, maybe.  Since Everybody's closed in Virginia Highland, there's no pizza in the neighborhood.  They could do a good take out business from people who don't feel like cooking but don't want Alon's or a casserole. That's what I would have said.  I don't think I would have said, you know, I've thought for a long time what our neighborhood really needs is a gourmet waffle sandwich place.  We have to go all the way to (where would one have to go?  I have no idea) to get our waffle sandwich fix.

But no one asked me.  Last night, Caroline and Iain and I walked to Yeah Burger and on the way we ran into our neighbor Marion and her friend, who were on their way to George's.  She told us that Burger Tap was closed and a waffle sandwich place was going in there instead.  I know, I told her, we were just talking about that.  Did they ask around the neighborhood and see what people thought about this idea?  She said, I know, this isn't Perimeter Mall.  I said a neighborhood place would do well there.  Families/after work/grown ups late night.  Yes, she said, like Caramba.  She said she'd been to Caramba recently, in their new location.  I said we have too.

So ..... waffle sandwiches it is.  Can't wait.

Caramba Cafe Reopened

I think I was out of the country last June, when there was a message on one of the neighborhood message boards that Caramba Cafe had closed.  The word was they had lost their lease. 

Caramba Cafe had been a neighborhood destination for at least 20 years.  When I first moved to Atlanta, I think there was a rotisserie chicken place in the location on North Highland (I remember eating there with the real estate agent who helped me find my house), but they moved into that space not long after that.  It was child-friendly and popular early in the evening with families with young children, but there was a lively neighborhood bar and great Margaritas and the child-free crowd later in the evening.  We often took friends or relatives from out of town there, and one December the Wessyngton women had our Winter Solstice celebration at the big round table in the corner.  We had to pull up extra chairs, that night.

But mostly I remember being at Caramba with my family.  Tom and I celebrated our first anniversary there, with Caroline - two weeks old - beside us, outside on the breezeway (that was before it got enclosed and turned into retail space).  We were new at being parents, and terrified, and the pediatrician had told us to not have the baby around other people if we could avoid it until she was at least six weeks old, so we did - and had we not been able to eat outside at Caramba, we probably would have had take out from somewhere for that anniversary dinner.

And there was the night that something caught on fire on the roof of the building.  There didn't seem to be any imminent danger, but they told us all to leave, so I took the kids and we waited across the street for Tom, who stayed behind to pay the check.  But he didn't come out for what seemed to be a very long time, and the kids got frightened.  (I suspect he was just finishing his drink.)  Fortunately, whatever damage there was seemed to be confined to the roof, and the next night they were back open.

There were postcards to Tom and me on our birthdays, and sometimes a cupcake with a candle when the kids chose Caramba for a birthday celebration.  We celebrated report cards and making it to the weekend and sometimes we went there when we just didn't feel like cooking.

So it was wrenching for us when Caramba closed.  We were glad to get the news that they were going to re-open elsewhere, but it took a long time.  But now they are open again, in a new building at 349 Decatur Street, and last night we went there to celebrate my birthday.  George and Rachel and Mia hugged all of us when we walked in (3 x 5, 15 hugs total), and we were glad to be back.

We can't walk there anymore, but it's not so far.  You can park in the deck behind the building for free, or there's also some parking on the street.  If you go, say hello for me.