I love the feeling of walking in somehwere I’ve never specifically been before and not recognizing the furniture, the layout of the aisles or even the color of the floor.

What in the world am I talking about? Well, let me ask you a question: have you ever been to the Cheesecake Factory in Phoenix, Arizona? Have you ever been to the Best Buy in Paramus, New Jersey? Yes. You have, if you've ever been to the Cheesecake Factory in Providence or the Best Buy in Warwick.

If you’ve ever been to a Target, that’s about it -- you’ve been to Target. You know where the dish soap is in Stop n’ Shop and you expect every spinach artichoke dip to taste like every other one you’ve ever had, regardless of which Cheesecake factory in which you are eating is. Cheesecake factory is Cheesecake Factory. Spinach dip is (should be?), uniformly...spinach dip.

That, invariably, is expected.

When I first moved to Providence from Chicago and, before that, New York City, I was relieved to find some familiar spots that had been part of my daily regimen (dependence?). Three glowing red letters: “CVS” welcomed me when I drove through downtown Providence trying to navigate my way to the East Side, where we are also lucky enough to have yet another CVS on Thayer Street.

Then there was Urban Outfitters, also on Thayer; Brooks Pharmacy on Pittman; Borders in Providence Place, Whole Foods on Waterman and on North Main (big business can be organic). That covers food, drugs, soap, clothes, books. You would think that I would have been satisfied when I found a Starbucks on Thayer and then again in Wayland Square.

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In fact, though, I found myself (find myself) thinking nostalgically of the Unicorn Cafe in Chicago and DTUT on the East Side of Manhattan, my two coffee haunts that were very specifically not Starbucks. No familiar glowing red lights and the coffee was not particularly good, but I missed the pastries at Unicorn and the big dirty couches at DTUT.

Whenever I travel back to New York, stop over in any airport or even find myself in Europe, I can be sure to find myself a provider of a Starbucks’ half-decaf non-fat no-whip grande carmel machiato.

Lima, Peru, even.

But still I am not satistfied with being inside a Starbucks and having the scene in the window outside be completely interchangeable with no affect on the inside of where I am sitting.

But wait! There are some alternatives in Providence. The East Side of Providence is lucky to boast several independant coffee houses. On Wickended there is Coffee Exchange and on South Main there is Cafe Zog. Both look nothing like each other, nothing like any other place that might have a name that sounds anything like the words “coffee”, “exchange”, or “zog”. Both are Bohemian and unpredictable, and I’ve never actually been to Cafe Zog. (Mmm...something to look forward to.)

And as far as those who choose to reject coffee all together, saying that coffee demands uniformity, but tea shops will forever be independant havens of resistance to the American monoculuture, I point out Tealuxe. Oh, Tealuxe, with their quaint Cambridge, Boston and Providence locations -- I am a huge fan...I pay rent at the Providence store -- I sadly discovered a fourth Tealuxe location, not listed on their website: Midtown Manhattan. My Tealuxe, oh my Tealuxe. Does it risk becoming no longer my “Tealuxe” but an excellent tea shop now reduced to “a” Tealuxe “location”?

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