By Ed Adamczyk

I am a peace-loving and coffee-drinking man and it pains me when a coffee war breaks out, unless I’m offered a cents-off coupon. The notice of a claim by a nearby McDonalds, on its advertising sign, of “Delaware’s Best Coffee” (I presume it refers to the Avenue, not the state) makes me again ponder this fondness of ours with getting over-caffeinated.

Walk or drive that one-mile route of Delaware through the Village of Kenmore, from the city line to Sheridan Drive, and you’ll pass 11 places to buy a cup of coffee, none of which is named Tim Hortons or Starbucks (and 4 places to obtain vodka: I checked. One is a liquor store with a coffee bar). Some are restaurants, while others, like the Noco gas-and-go at Delaware and Kenwood, have the ambiance of a filling station convenience store. That, on average, is a coffee outlet per 480 feet, and doesn’t count the recently-closed shop run by witches (I refer to the proprietors’ spiritual bent, not their personalities).

A coffee-pumping Sunoco mini-mart and a Starbucks are immediately south. A Tim Hortons can be found northwest, north, due east on Highland Avenue and a block east on Delaware Road (I once observed that Walgreens has Kenmore surrounded, but by only 4 locations. That does not compare to the alacrity with which Tim Hortons shops are being built. If you live in Ken-Ton and never want to see a certain person again, invite him or her to your home with the advice “Turn right at the Tim Hortons”).

All right, we swill way too much of this stuff. We know where to find the quality cup of coffee to savor and relish (with cake and brownies and doughnuts) and generally make us appreciative we are citizens of a 21st-century industrialized society. We also know where to get the rougher-tasting-but-still-coffee coffee that’ll get us through whatever errand we’re on, until we can locate the coffee of preference. And it is no secret the markup on a cup of coffee is sufficient, the barriers to entry are low, and the means of production is so simple, that anyone in any business can become a coffee merchant.

Know what we need, out here? Right, another coffee franchise. Enter Coffee Culture Café and Eatery, a Mississauga, Ontario-based chain with 70 franchises immediately over the border (sound familiar?). It will soon open its first American shops with locations in Williamsville and downtown Buffalo, and according to its website, has plans to take over the abandoned Long John Silver fish shack on Sheridan Drive near Parker Boulevard.

Theirs is a decidedly upscale enterprise. The Town of Tonawanda is about to get a coffee shop with wood paneling on the walls, overly-rich desserts in glass display cabinets and that overstuffed ambiance of charm and warmth and comfort that suggests you’re somewhere other than a half-mile away from Boulevard Mall. They’ll likely pipe in jazz and Wi-Fi as well, if I’m any judge of these places. It’ll be a place some people will designate their clubhouse, the way every man once had a favorite tavern.

Any more of these one-stops to feed a coffee jones, and Western New York will be in jeopardy of losing its reputation as a great place to have a beer. Not the fact, just the reputation.

Indeed, I’m convinced I’ve lived long enough to see coffee become the de facto social lubricant of our civilization. Read any of what’s considered great literature and note the characters are constantly swilling brandy, opening wine bottles, slamming mead shots, and waving tankards of beer in the air. Have you done a lot of that lately? Note the ratio of your recent experiences with alcohol (whatever your age, speed or hipness) compared to the times you stop your activity to grab a cup of coffee, and tell me if you’d rather be the owner of a saloon or a coffee shop.

I occasionally stopped into that forlorn little Long John Silver store, geographically near no other casual dining experience on Sheridan. I liked that I always seemed to be, even at my stage of the game, the youngest patron in the place (they served a non-burger menu of fried seafood, which the older clientele evidently found perfectly digestible). The parking lot was always filled with the sort of heavyweight sedans favored by the senior citizen demographic (never a Jetta in sight), and the place was deserted by 8 P.M.

Well, Tonawanda will apparently be getting a different experience soon. Minivan-driving moms and high-school kids with coffee habits and downwardly mobile young professionals will have a new and comfortable place to converge.

These kids are driving me crazy. Do you think she likes me? Help me with my resume. I’m guessing the coffee will be strong and the cross-table conversations will be fascinating.