People are essentially the same everywhere you go, but more so if the situations surrounding them are similar. Seems stupid to say, but I’m going somewhere with it.

If you go to a smaller city anywhere in the country and eat at a a small local favorite diner, you’ll encounter the same people. They will all wear hats and shirts supporting the local sports team, there will always be a at least one booth that’s a couple of older friends you can tell have been eating there together for years and years, and the waitress is 100% likely to call you “honey” or “sugar”. Obviously you can’t go to Chicago and expect it to be like Topeka, but you can go from somewhere like Jackson, Mississippi, to Everett, Washington and in some ways it’s the same. Sure, there are mountains right outside the window of the diner as opposed to the normal view in Jackson of a parking lot where nobody knows how to park. But it still feels a tad bit like home. Continue reading “diner coffee has its own strengths”