An Endearing Oddity at the Heart of Normal

How do you describe the seemingly indescribable? The effective fluctuation and diffusion of culture occurring on the daily, via framed images, lively conversation, the tapping of typing fingers producing art and opinion and narrative… Sure, I can list these things, and you’ll probably recognize the words and link them to whatever images are triggered within your mind, but am I really reaching you? Is this reality truly making an impression?

The troubles with description, I suppose, arise from a lack of distance. A certain closeness implied by an emotional connection that tweaks the imagery into a ceaseless reel of stop-framed ideal that others can’t see through, not really. I know this place so well that it’s hard for me to let you in unless you know, and if you knew, then the thoughts and memories are then your own. We could relate on the same names and circumstances, but the lighting would be off, ever so slightly, and the resonant chord would be of a faintly different tune. I can only hope to articulate something normal within the confines of my own perspective, to introduce you to the substance, if not the tone or the feeling. Let me begin to list what you see:

Variant disguises worn around friendly smiles, hidden behind a tall counter.

The dint and dust on that which is lost in the shuffle of busy-ness and business.

Pamphlets attuning you to the popular and unpopular revelations of a vibrant downtown.

The gleaming bronze sides of the first coffee roaster Normal had ever seen.

Paintings and pictures adorning the streaked and oft-used walls.

The hissing steam wand and the rattling ween of grinding espresso.

Me, in a corner, straining to capture the dynamics of a place so steeped in local culture.

The joy of Coffeehouse is not that it’s a business where you can purchase some very affordable coffee. That’s a draw, sure, and a significant one, but if that’s all you’re after, then you aren’t even scratching the surface of what this social confluence has to offer. This is a place of acceptance and diversity; a place accepting of diversity, promoting those very aspects which compose the idea of character.

That worn, carpeted stage at the far back of the restaurant has seen countless speakers, poets, authors, critics. Professors hold class at the long tables with the creaky chairs for students who would rather take their learning outside of the brick and mortar, away from the wrap-around desk top. Countless bands, many of them repeat performers, have stained the carpet with their sweat even as the wood raising that stage still pulses with the notes of their creation.

This is a place for coffee and music, a place for personality. This is a dynamic place, an establishment so rooted in Normal that even as management changed, the aesthetic, and the mission, remained.

The current iteration of Coffeehouse came into being when the Wilson family took possession of the building and its business in 1996. Before Simon and his wife, Jane, negotiated an affordable price, the place had still been known as the Coffeehouse, only it was owned by a larger chain, known as Coffee World. The Coffeehouse name was on the placard, but only as a subordinate component of the chain to which it was attached.

The Wilsons had moved from Chicago to Normal in 1985 to raise their family in some proximity to where both Simon and Jane were beginning work, at the power plant in Clinton, IL. Over time they began investing in apartment buildings, foraying into some business opportunities around town. Simon says he first visited the Coffee World Coffeehouse around 1994 while visiting the downtown Normal area, citing his attraction to coffee and music for coming around. When he walked in, he noticed right away that there was something different about the coffee, something different about the atmosphere.

“We would take the kids to violin lessons…on Wesleyan’s campus, and in the spare time I’d come to Downtown,” Simon says to me in his Aruban-flavored English. We’re sitting in his basement office. The walls are adorned by pictures of land investments, clustered shelving, art…a microcosm of his world above. “There were live bands on Saturday nights, and I liked the coffee and the scones…”

This was during a time when coffeeshops weren’t a staple of small towns – Starbucks hadn’t even opened its first store outside of the US – so the draw of the establishment was obvious. Additionally, the vegetarian menu was something novel and provocative in an underdeveloped area; it was practically a niche restaurant catering to the prominent population of hippies that occupied Normal during those years. Coffee World Coffeehouse had a lot of business going its way, but the owners wanted to sell. Something involving allergies, or the fact that smoking wasn’t allowed in the building anymore, Simon recalls. Regardless, the sale went up and, after researching the coffee industry and sitting on the idea for a long time, the Wilsons entered into negotiations for the business in late ’95, and finally made the purchase in ’96.

“What about the coffee roaster?” you ask.

You mean the first coffee roaster in Normal? The staple of Coffeehouse dating back even to when it was Coffee World Coffeehouse? It’s a beaut, I’ll admit. Sitting back along the railing of the staircase that leads downstairs to the offices, the roaster looks almost like some Dr. Seuss contraption, with its bulbous stack and swiping, grinding blades. It’s an odd look, but the Coffeehouse has an odd look. There are mismatched furnitures. The collective utensils used for coffee/espresso brewing and serving are an assortment of barista tools passed down through the ages. The carpeting starts in an odd place, and the rugs, though rustic and fitting, all hold a different personality in design. Not to mention the sutured basement, like a small labyrinth, twisting and turning through long store rooms and the occasional dead end.

“The old guy, he was very frugal,” Simon tells me, remarking on the old ownership. Apparently so frugal that he would purchase everything from auctions, both to reuse materials and to save a buck. A noble endeavor, and an obvious for the subtle weirdness of this place, a weirdness not unpleasant in how naturally it seems to occur and subsist within itself.

The novelty of having a vegetarian menu is something that still speaks to people around the area, but it’s not as significant an aspect as it was before. Searching for that thing to set them apart in more than just coffee and arthouse tradition, the Wilsons attempted to carry-out the previous owners’ plans of attaching a deli to the far side of the building.

Now, this area is of a unique design. It’s skinny, with a small window peaking into the kitchen. Moving towards the back, there is a dry storage area that leads to a rickety staircase-ladder combo that provides access to the basement, where containers, baking ingredients, and pounds and pounds of coffee are stored. This is also the most accessible point of the basement, other than the staircases on the restaurant side, and this mechanism of descent leads to the somewhat convoluted far side of the basement, the strange side of the basement. Some claim that this is where the Coffeehouse ghost resides, but you know how myth can grow.

The original idea for this space was to have a component of the restaurant that dealt in bulk specialty items. These included coffee, spices, exotic canned foods, and so on. While it was a fine idea, the products weren’t moving off the shelves at the rate the Wilsons needed for turning much of a profit; additionally, it became very labor intensive, with all the ordering, tracking, selling, shelving, the upkeep, etc. Over time this lack of sales weighed even more heavily on those responsible for upkeep until, eventually, the Wilsons decided to try a different tact: a restaurant attached to their restaurant, something for the people who would rather not eat vegetarian. Reggie’s Premium Sandwiches was born in January of 2010, as was my introduction to this Coffeehouse family.

What was this place before you bought it, I ask Simon.

“Vacant for a while, I think,” he says.

Do you know what it was before, though? Like, way before?

“A furniture store.”

Is that why it’s so…?

The building has character, of course, but the characters who occupy that building are who really define what the building resembles. Let’s just say that, in a college town, in a business atmosphere that sees employee overturn every four years (most of the time), like an endless cycle, this building has adopted its fair share of traits. For instance, there are pictures that adorn the directions for crafting a drink. The specials board is always a pleasant, colorful reminder. Birthday parties have been hosted here, as well as employee bands. Part time students working with fulltime adults, everyone’s varied interests accepted and ingested into the Coffeehouse culture, turning it, changing it, keeping it ever-fresh.

The vibrancy of this restaurant isn’t something that can or should be summarized. I could speak at length about the mural of bathroom graffiti that, while against the Wilsons’ wishes (and against the law), still speaks to the population at large. The homage to Ayn Rand and the subsequent insults scrawled or carved in under at that homage. The quirky lines and lyrics, the hope that your day gets better, all speckling the rackety boards of the enclosed toilets. There’s a poop joke as well, but, then again, why shouldn’t there be?

Every feature of this restaurant speaks to the occupants therein. The locals who take their breakfast here every morning leave traces of their passing, maybe insignificant as crumbs, but still there. The employees who leave their art, their knowledge, their memories. Even the old owner who left the coffee roaster, or the older owner, who shellacked together a furniture business in an intriguing architectural fashion. This place has been a mainstay of downtown Normal culture for years and years and years, and it isn’t going anywhere.

So, how do you describe something so closed, yet so accessible? Something odd but practically permanent in a time of economic turmoil? How do you capture the essence of something at once chaotic and structured, hodgepodge and organized? With so many contradictions, is there any word that can encompass this entity?
“Home,” says Yvonne Wilson, daughter of Simon and Jane, and current co-manager of Coffeehouse. “Sure, it’s flawed. But this is home to me.” We’re sitting at one of those little round tables by the new bulk coffee dispensary as we speak. She pauses for the moment to take a sip from her lightly-creamed coffee.
“And I love it here,” she says, smiling at me.

Something tells me that the rest of Normal loves it here, too.  --Stephen Watkins