C. Coffee Shop.

This is the third post in the A to Z Challenge. My theme is my Bucket List. Read more about the project here. The other things on my bucket list are Ancient Ruins and Book. 

C is for Coffee Shop. Not a chain. A few outlets maybe.

Let me hazard an opinion. A coffee shop is one of the most important inventions of the current era. Why? Not because they sell overpriced beverages. But because the coffee shops give us those proverbial third places where we all can chill. First place is home, second is office. Third place is an in-between where we could choose to remain anonymous and seek asylum whenever we want. Atleast this is my definition of a third place. Of a coffee shop. This to me like a modern reincarnation of those salons that thrived in the last century.

So, one of the things that I want to do in life before I die, is to be able to create, own, manage and run a coffee shop that is loosely modeled on these salons.

I dont intend to make money off these salons but I want to sort of curate culture and change at these place. And if it could become a self-sustained venture, nothing like it.

Imagine a place where you could go without any inhibitions or any obligations as such. Where you have other great minds to chit chat with, where you could exchange ideas and where you create things. Think of a mashup of a co-working space, a coffee shop, a library, a school, a movie theatre, a laboratory and a barcamp. I would call it Acme Labs (inspired by Pinky and Brain).

Imagine is a place where you could come up with ideas, you could find co-conspirators to work on ideas, you could get an audience to showcase your ideas and then another audience to talk about your journey from ideas to execution to customers.

In fact, the modern coffee stores are very close to my ideas of Acme Labs but then they are for-profit operations and thus they cant allow a lot of freewheeling. I wish they could. I would not move out of such places. I could even live at such places. The other thing with these coffee shops is that they are more of watering holes without alcohol and most banter is social, rather than cerebral.

Anyhow, someday when I have figured out shit in life, I would really want to put money towards creating atleast one such edition of Acme Labs. Its not a question of if. But a question of when. There is no question about that. However, I have a question for you dear reader. Would you want to come to Acme Labs? To have a coffee and get into conversations about ideas? To translate these ideas into great pieces of art or business?