The cafe with a bathroom of secrets

And an irreparably scratched floor.

I am here to inform you that I have a new favorite cafe.

This is nothing unusual. I float from cafe to cafe every few months, only moving on once I’ve thoroughly let the space soak into my skin. I’m sitting in my current favorite as I type this.

The wood floors are so incredibly scratched from chairs being dragged from table to table that it’s impossible to tell the original stain tone. In front of the espresso machine—where the baristas hand off drinks—the floor is irreparably darkened from over a decade of people in soggy Portland rain boots waiting for their drinks.

The cafe sits squarely at the intersection of two downtown streetcar lines. Every four minutes, you can feel the rumble of streetcars reverberate through the ground as they pass by. I think many of the streetcar conductors begin their shifts at nearby stops. Most mornings, if I arrive early enough, there are groups of two or three conductors in the cafe already. Sometimes I see them standing at the bar with scones and steaming cups of coffee for here but more often, they take their drinks to go as their trolleys pull up outside.

On that note, the customers here are mostly older. For how unusual it is to see someone in a suit in Portland, there are quite a few suited businesspeople that come here. The two-seat tables that make up a majority of the seating are usually filled couples in conversation. Remote workers on their laptops are in the minority—a rarity nowadays, it feels like.

Perhaps you’re wondering about the coffee. It’s dark, or at least it’s darker than what I usually drink. I like it because I don’t have to think about it while I drink it. It tastes the exact same every day and is always ripping hot out of the carafe. I let my steaming mug sit next to me for at least three minutes before taking my first sip. The thick diner mugs make the texture of each sip creamy and round.

I have a favorite seat and it’s the last stool on the long wrap-around bar that makes up the core of the cafe. It seats me near the baristas and facing the front entrance. Occasionally, while they are stamping cups or prepping coffee, we’ll talk about what book we’re reading. There’s a romance bookstore next to the cafe and we all secretly (or not so secretly) like the romantic fantasies with dragons and fae and magic.

But perhaps the most interesting part of the cafe is the single bathroom that bears the marks of what people will only say in private. The walls are covered in hand-written graffiti and stickers. There’s no rhyme or rhythm to it. Just the scattered thoughts of passing visitors: missed connections, lewd comments, phone numbers, declarations of love, and oddly profound statements on human resilience.

My favorite scrawl is a single line that says I think I have IBS, followed by a note in different handwriting that says hope you get better.

A few weeks ago, the bathroom walls were finally painted over. A new layer of scribbles has already begun and every time someone goes to the bathroom, I wonder if they’re stowing away a pen in their pocket to leave their darkest secrets on the wall.

There’s a sticker that survived the repainting that simply asks Who will answer for the sins of the algorithm?

I think about it a lot.

I’ll move on to frequenting a different cafe soon. Maybe it’ll become my next favorite. In the meantime, my coffee mug is empty and it’s time to give this seat to someone else.

Until next time,

Morgan

P.S. This is the Case Study on 10th Avenue in Portland, Oregon.