November 11, 2004: So close…
I’m in NC for like the 3rd consecutive week except this time I chose to drive just so I’d get a break from flying. It was a beautiful drive, a little cool with the tops down, but just fine once the afternoon sun hit. On the way I drove through Charleston arriving there about lunch time. I started looking for a place to eat but all that seemed immediately available was the usual crap that I can find on Archer rd. back home or in every other god damn city. I stopped to ask for a recommendation and someone suggested I try Moe’s.
Nice.
I continued driving and entered a plaza with that housed a joint called the Salt and Pepper Cafe which, unfortunately, had a menu filled with fried meat, meat and more meat. I asked the hostess if she could recommend something without so much meat and she pointed me to a nearby Whole Foods. So, it’s better than nothing but I thought maybe I could find something near it.
So there’s a place called Coco’s Café. I park the car and walk up and, surprisingly enough, the menu is in french! Les Pâtes, Les Poissons… I try to open the door but it’s locked. A sign says they’re open for lunch, yet it’s still 1:40. Then a woman opens the door from the inside and, in a delicious french accent, tells me she’s sorry and that they closed early because it was slow. I’m thinking to myself two things: 1. asking her out to lunch cause I’m intrigued as hell as to how she ended up in Charleston out of all places, and 2. it freaking depresses me to no end how, as long as people choose to go to their stupid cheesecake factories, they’ll continue to suck the soul of places like these.
Some people say I’m a picky eater because I usually fight going to chain places. Well, I prefer to think of it as I’m a picky spender. Whenever possible, I opt to give the money to people I care about. Hey, I’ve gone to my share of bad independently-owned places.. but there are also many good ones that I won’t ever be able to go to because they didn’t make it.