If being overly sentimental is a character flaw, it’s a minor one. In any event, I plead guilty. I tend to form emotional attachments to people, events and places. Since I cling—almost tenaciously—to memories, I can tell you who my girlfriends were in 1982 (Patricia/Louise), 1983 (Kelle), 1984 (Mary Lou), 1985 (Heidi) and so forth. Something happened recently that put this trait in the spotlight once again. I had lunch with my friend Yong Yoon on Tuesday, May 10, 2016. As we so often do, we then decided to go to a coffee shop. Gangnam has a surfeit of coffee shops. Starbucks is everywhere, not to mention Paris Baguette, Ediya, Tom N Toms, Tous les Jours, Caribou, Café Benne and Holly’s. Those are franchised operations. If I have my choice, I will go to an independent shop for my Americano or mocha latte. My favorite is, and now I must say was, the one run by Diana Ahn. It had a name that you may call either inspired or bland: “Coffee is 1,200 Won.”
It pains me to use past-tense verbs, but I have no choice. Diana had been the proprietor of this little shop since 2003. Sitting right across the street from my office, it was nothing if not convenient. Then there was the matter of price. Twelve hundred won is pretty cheap, and the coffee was as good as you will find anywhere. Diana sold other kinds of drinks along with sandwiches, bagels and cookies. She might have had a wider range of fare, but she seemed to know what she wanted and did not want; I urged her to add oatmeal cookies but she demurred. Diana was definitely the boss lady, although she seemed to have a gentle touch with her employees. Until about 18 months ago, her son Yeong-Seok worked there. Then he got a presumably better paying job as a chef at a downtown restaurant. I attended his wedding five years ago and have seen his daughter Hee-Soo go from infant to rambunctious kid.
What can I remember doing at Diana’s coffee shop? I met countless people by chance, I had business confabs of various kinds, I had planning sessions about our bring-Jikji-back-to-Korea campaign, I did some intensive work with my student Anthony Kim, I went over a video about Abner Haynes, I edited ESL textbooks for Nexus Publishing Company, and I read. How many times did I walk in there, order one cup and a cookie or sandwich, go to the back table and settle down to read a few pages of some history book? If I put that estimate at 250 times, it would probably be low.
Coffee is 1,200 Won was a pleasant place to be—sometimes quiet, sometimes loud; I might be alone or it might be packed. Diana, who showed moderate interest in my writings, got signed copies of both Travels of an American-Korean, 2008-2013 and A Seoul Miscellany. The décor was not too special, with yellow wallpaper that featured repeating patterns about the Lewis & Clark expedition. Don’t ask me why. There was a series of black-and-white photographs, one of which featured Deborah Harry, former lead singer of Blondie. Toward the end, you could see a big color shot of a joyful Hee-Soo.
When Mr. Yoon and I first saw the door locked and no lights on, we figured Diana had taken a well-earned vacation. But it was the same thing the next day, and I got a sinking feeling. After blue-collar guys showed up and started tearing it apart, there could be no denying the truth. To call where I live and work a “neighborhood” is a stretch, but Diana’s coffee shop helped make it one. This place was a neighborhood unto itself.
During the destruction/construction process, I looked in there again and again. A lot of memories flooded my brain, and I could not help wondering—why? Was this shop no longer economically viable? Diana surely could have raised the price of a cup by 300 won or more. Seems that 1,500 won would still be cheap and no customers would be lost. On the contrary, people would have understood if she doubled the price. If I’d had the chance, I would have told her so: “Diana, you have a huge reservoir of good will among your clientele. You would lose no customers by a significant price increase.”
It’s just as likely that she had grown tired of being in that little space so many hours a day, almost every day. I admit, I sometimes looked at her with a measure of pity. It would have driven me crazy to do what she did. Diana must have heard “Americano chuseyo” fifty billion times.
I am not depressed but slightly melancholy about the closing of Coffee is 1,200 Won. A store serving fruit juice quickly moved in, but who cares? I don't expect to be a frequent patron.
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