I’m sitting in a Pret a Manger on 29th Street and 7th Avenue in Manhattan. I just got done with improv coaching and I’m waiting to go see an improv show at 10:30 down the block.
When I first moved to New York City, I used to go for long walks all over the city, just to explore. I would walk mainly south of 14th Street, through the West Village, down through Tribeca, through the financial district and the World Trade Center (my last walk through there was Sunday September 9th, 2001). I would bring my journal and at some point, I would find a Starbucks to sit in and write.
I was a wild man.
In all the talk of New York City losing its soul, it bears mentioning that I’ve lived here for almost nineteen years and it’s been lame the entire time. I moved to Rudy Giuliani, Disney Times Square New York. So, it’s probably fitting that an Ivy League, suburban, dot com kid would love to go from Starbucks to Starbucks, rather than what I should have been doing which was, well, I don’t know really. I suppose going to the Mudd Club or CBGBs or trying to cop horse from the local bodega that has nothing on its shelves but cops look the other way because they don’t care. You know, real New York.
But Starbucks for me was always like a rest stop. That’s the beauty of having a Starbucks every other block. The question was never, “Will there be a place to sit and write?” it was “Where’s the Starbucks?” And so, a lifelong love of Starbucks was born. I collect Starbucks mugs from various cities, including Paris, where I asked a French Starbucks employee how to say mug in French (it’s “mug”). Half of my Christmas tree ornaments are ceramic Starbucks cups. I am addicted to dark, strong coffee and Starbucks is where I cop.
Louis Black had a joke about the end of the universe in Houston, Texas where he found a Starbucks across the street from a Starbucks. The other day I was on 40th Street and 7th avenue, across the street from a Pret a Manger. I looked to my left and over on 40th and Broadway was another Pret a Manger. That is 11 blocks from where I am now (in a Pret a Manger). If I crane my head out the front of this Pret a Manger, I can see yet another Pret a Manger three or four blocks south.
Pret a Manger is the new Starbucks and I love it.
It serves that same purpose that Starbucks used to for me. If I ever need to take a seat or meet someone, I just find the Pret. In my crappy work neighborhood, there isn’t much good food around but there’s a Pret and I go there at least a couple of times a week for lunch. I go there pretty much every day for my afternoon coffee. They know me there as the guy who brings his own coffee sleeve and they give me my coffee for free pretty frequently. That little gesture has done more for customer loyalty than any punch card or app reward ever has. I don’t know how much money I’ve spent in Pret a Manger but several years of eating there several times a week I would guess it’s in the thousands of dollars.
There’s the romance of New York and there’s the daily reality of New York. I watch all of these movies and TV shows where people exist in fabulous Tribeca Lofts and they’re all novelists or playwrights or titans of industry and they eat in fancy restaurants and drink expensive cocktails. Or they’re living some tortured artist life in a dingy apartment, playing in a band and wearing a black leather jacket, a life which, admittedly – I have to give it to David Byrne, Patti Smith and even Moby – doesn’t exist anymore. But sometimes I just want to see a life like the one my friends and I live in New York. It’s a world of cubicles and roommates (a one bedroom if you’re really fortunate) and commuter trains and seamless and IKEA and Old Navy and hopping out on your lunch break to grab a wrap at Pret because it’s easy and a decent lunch.
Pret has spread across the island of Manhattan like a virus and it’s suffered from the expansion just like Starbucks did. They’re a little less well kept and a bit more picked over than they used to be. Maybe it’s just another example of chains killing New York or maybe it’s just another chain that will be here temporarily and then fade away. Even Barnes and Nobles close in this city. But I sat here for the past hour or so, ate a decent flatbread sandwich, and used their wifi to crank out a blog post, so, I don’t really care. And I’ll be back on Monday for a coffee.
