Why don't we have a cafe culture?

I love Cafés. And I think I've finally found the one for me in Ann Arbor. If it wasn't so far away I'd walk to it nightly, with a good book by GKC under one arm and perhaps a friend in tow, providing they could remain quiet once in awhile so I could read.

The café had everything one needs from a café: outdoor tables for summer people-gawking, richly-clad red leather booths, dim lights still sufficient for reading, well-placed mirrors and murals to help a small area feel expansive, witty waitress who can banter back and ensure that the obligatory indecisiveness in ordering avoids tediousness, as well as a positively brilliant music selection of classical guitar, obligatory jazz and even brief closing-time forays into electronica and European downbeat techno (a la Dr. Benthall's "unique" selection of ambience offerings for Drogos)

Like all my discoveries, it wasn't actually my own, per se. It was Sean's, who insisted among our little party (which included new-seminarian Joe and old-seminarian Mark) that we find a new place to get coffee besides Starbucks - some place not involved in a national mom-and-pop-crushing corporate chain. What we settled on was the Café Felix.

Two hours later we decided it was quite satisfactory.

Why oh why doesn't America have a café culture? All the greats, (I'm thinking here of the Inklings), knew how important it was to devote a solid three to four hours every night to conversation and conviviality in a café. Of course the Inklings were mostly English so they went to Pubs. Fair enough, I might migrate over when I turn twenty-one.

In closing, I'm writing this email as I wait for our little cabal to muster its forces and prepare for another foray into the snow-laden, slush-piled streets of michigan in search of tonight's caffeinated speculations.

Wow, I'm eloquent and haven't even had coffee yet tonight. This proves a promisement.