Their lives are changing, but they don’t know it yet. People count on consistency, repetition, and some certainty. And so it is when they’ve found a place that has allowed them to find some sense of community. The coffee shop I’m writing at today is closing in 23 days, but it’s not been announced yet, so some of the regulars are still in their routine with no sense of foreboding or knowledge that a month from now, many of them will no longer run into each other. I believe when they, too, learn of the closing, there will be a sense of mourning as a favorite morning stop is being taken off the map.

Inflation is the culprit, taking another victim that will be yet one more anonymous mom & pop operation to close on the march toward corporatized America. The division of wealth has created incredible hostilities between reality, comfort, and what some of us consider luxury. When private equity groups, millionaires, and billionaires are able to gobble up vast amounts of property and require them to have sizable returns to generate yet more wealth, they can take rents and valuations to whatever the market might bear. As for the disenfranchised public at large, they are a faceless victim that will either figure it out or land on the street; such is our take-no-prisoners style of business.

Regarding this coffee shop, the rent is going up, coffee prices are rising in part due to energy and transportation costs, finding basic supplies such as cups, lids, and even oatmeal grows more challenging, and all of this figures into the problems of finding employees that even if they were available, the employer has to remain aware that they are going to be pinched by an economy that will have them needing to demand more money.

Meanwhile, the laughter this place is accustomed to continues throughout the morning, and I’m acutely aware that this counter I’ve stood at for years will become a distant memory like so many other places I’ve frequented over the decades. Normally, I move away or encounter the locked door of a business that, from one day to the next, just quit. I’m sure that they, too, knew what was coming but couldn’t face the brutality of telling customers whose sympathies would make it just that much more heartbreaking to see their dream extinguished. Part of me wishes today that I didn’t know.

Until the owner makes the announcement, there will be no commiseration parties of solemnity over final cups of coffee; it’s business as usual…until it’s not.