Another strike for the Someday?

[cthulhia]

By noon today the repainted bathroom walls already had graffiti elaborating on how much the owners much suck for this crappy "upgrade" of the decor. And the barristo (male barrista?) was helping patrons add to a petition to bring back the things that are why Someday got its "Best of Boston" rating: games, bookswap shelf, inviting seating. The other customer also misses the big, black, fuzzy, dogbed-like reading divan.

A significant amount of the comfortable chairs are gone, replaced by the evil stools everyone regards as tables.

There are probably some bottom line issues here, encouraging people not to linger, which, alas, is the point of going to any cafe other than dunkin donuts. (I made a point of buying a coffee at the Someday today, instead of tea. Not noticably better brewed than Diesel to me.) The price of Davis gentrification? I thought the Tosci's people had more of a clue than that.

If Someday goes away, then Diesel loses its primary competition. Everything degrades. If they don't respond to customer complaints about this, it could be the beginning of an end.

(And if they do respond favorably, we should probably organize a regular LJ meet-up there, to show our gratitude, since they are the Cafe with an LJ and all.)

Comments

questions

[lidiya6.livejournal.com]

Is there new ownership? Do people linger too long? I don't really go to someday too much but I have never noticed a seating problem. however I do have a hard time finding a seat at Diesel most of the time.

Re: questions

[cthulhia]

The barristo said that Toscanini's (or someone sufficiently associated with them) bought the Someday about a year ago.

Clearly it's been competing with Diesel, which is quite a "Be Seen" scene. It's a rare day when I don't bump into someone I know there. Someday has become the place where you want to be accessible, but not constantly interrupted. If you just want to get out of the house, but really want to just read or write, the Someday still is a far better choice than Diesel. They also have an open mike nite. Their second room, with the previous better seating, was quite suitable for that. (I guess now you'd just have the performers up by the window, since most of the seating is in back. Maybe the seating change helps acoustics?)

There is still some comfortable seating, but it just looked barren when I walked in. I suspect the seating will morph as customers see fit anyway.

It was not inviting, so my conclusion was that they wanted to bump up customer turn-over.

I spent most of my life in the sticks. In the rare event that someone opened a hip hang-out cafe, it never lasted more than a couple years. The Someday still beats the crap out of Starbucks, no matter how "comfy" starbucks appears to be.

Re: questions

[bratling.livejournal.com]

i've never really been comfortable at the someday, which i started going to in 1997. nice idea, but the staff were always brusque, and something just felt off about the environment.

when diesel opened, i more or less did a dance. consistently friendly staff, functional seating, pleasant and constantly changing non-hippy decor. noisy, but i can deal with that.

$0.02.

I will admit I haven't been to the Someday since...

[cthulhia]

but, the staff was very friendly and attentive to the customer’s needs when I went last month.
So, that would be a positive change to the environment.
The decor was less user-friendly, but it’s likely to have evolved as needed in the past weeks. We have Someday staff on LJ reading our opinions, so it’s worth checking up on.

[charliegrrrl.livejournal.com]

That's so lame... the comfy seats were the main advantage of the Someday over Diesel... I was going to spend more time there, but now I guess I won't!