The Café Eclectic; Montclair, New Jersey

5 Conversations


Montclair is too trendy to have bars. Bars, apparently, attract the wrong kind of people and promote a negative image of this Suburban utopia, or at least the voters seem to think so.


So instead, it has coffee houses. Most of them are pretentious and gimmicky. One survives only because it's a convenient place to crack open your new novel--it's adjacent to the town's local bookshop--and the other two are Starbucks franchises.


And yet amid all this kitch there lives the Café Eclectic. It's amazing how utterly out of place this hangout is. It's cool, it's froody, it radiates comfort and happiness. In short, it belongs in Greenwich Village or Old Compton Street. It certainly is a little odd to find such a place in a town where every third automobile is an S.U.V.1   and crossing the street isn't a coordination test.


The coffee is admittedly expensive, but for good reason. It's wonderful, freshly brewed Colombian coffee with the kind of aroma that gurantees a sleepless night. The café also houses a fine variety of desserts--caramel apple pies, cheesecakes, and one of the densest chocolate desserts around; it usually comes with a quarter pound brick of fudge sitting on top. Order a la mode2   and dinner becomes suddenly unimportant.


Three nights a week the café invites local talent in to perform. Anyone not wanting to actively listen should go on any night but these. The bands are enthrallingly original folk rock combos, playing in the sort of fashion that lets you know they're doing this because it's fun, right from the very first chord. It's a wonderfully relaxing place to unwind after a week spent in yuppie hell.


The thing about the place that sets it above the rest is the wait staff, who do more to contribute to the ecstatically trippy decor than the almost obscene variety of furniture. They're constantly moving and have the superhuman ability to carry three drinks, three desserts and a frightening array of silverware without spilling a drop, all while remembering who got what, simultaneously emptying ashtrays and distributing napkins; tip big. But despite all this, they actually like working there. You'll never see one of them without a smile on their face or at least a kind of quirky grin. They're hopelessly cheery, and it's infectous.


So when in the New York City/Newark area check out the eclectic. See? Every once in awhile something wonderful does spring up in the suburbs.

1A Sport Utility Vehicle--the mini-van of the trendy. Shockingly large automobiles that prowl the suburbs looking for people to flash their highbeams at. The entire class of car (well, truck really) is a contradiction in terms--very few people who buy these things ever take them offroad.2With ice cream on the side, not to be confused with 'en vogue' which means ice cream strategically positioned on an anorexic woman as a bathing suit.

Bookmark on your Personal Space


Entry

A402256

Infinite Improbability Drive

Infinite Improbability Drive

Read a random Edited Entry


Disclaimer

h2g2 is created by h2g2's users, who are members of the public. The views expressed are theirs and unless specifically stated are not those of the Not Panicking Ltd. Unlike Edited Entries, Entries have not been checked by an Editor. If you consider any Entry to be in breach of the site's House Rules, please register a complaint. For any other comments, please visit the Feedback page.

Write an Entry

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly remarkable book. It has been compiled and recompiled many times and under many different editorships. It contains contributions from countless numbers of travellers and researchers."

Write an entry
Read more