I want to open a pancake house on Pacific just north of Windward Circle.
I was wandering, waiting to meet a girl. First, I was in Mao’s for a menu to-go. Then absent-minded aloofness took over and dragged me up Pacific to the corner before Aardvarks. Daylight Savings Time hadn’t sprung forward yet, and it was pitch-black and hazy. And through this haze, backlit by fluorescent lights, by white linoleum and thin, green grout, there was empty space. Empty dining space for lease and just a few blocks north of Windward Circle; a shining beacon in the rain and the storm, surprisingly bright for how late it was. I remember thinking back, only slightly, to days working for Dan at the Harbor Café. His weekly warnings: “Dude, never start a small business. It’s a lot of getting fucked, and then some making money on the side.” He lives his own life, and a lot of times that life is work. But when it’s not work, it’s this open and beckoning world all reasonably within his grasp. To me, he seems free, and that’s what I want to be.
And I love pancakes; elephant pancakes, butterfly pancakes, peanut butter pancakes, pumpkin pancakes. Everyone loves pancakes. French girls adore les pancakes. Hungry, drunk kids love pancakes. Hung-over morning romances love pancakes. Vegetarians love pancakes? Maybe some do.
And espresso; the tiny macchiato cups, the wide cappuccino cups, lattes, mochas. There’s that ever present scent of steamed milk and pressed coffee bean. It lays thick and excited, in the air and on the tip of your lip, accenting speech and attitude.
It’s hard work, but it’s passionate and it’s motivated. And it would be my own. I want to open a pancake house on Pacific just north of Windward.
