A Cafe With Character

It was on a side street in an old block of buildings in downtown Dover. The cafe. I’d been on the lookout for a cafe with character, and the latest edition of the University of New Hampshire newspaper that I’d gotten my hands on happened to have a review of this one...

They said it had good coffee, and a Prose Open Mic on the first Thursday of each month. Sounded interesting to me, and by the address I knew it couldn’t be very far away, so on Saturday afternoon I drove off to find it.

I parked in a city lot which had some sort of confusing meter system... I was relieved to see that the fees didn’t apply to weekends.

I strolled past the old mill (every New England city that sits on a river is nestled around an abandoned or rehabilitated mill dating back from the late 1800s), and then admired a stately historic municipal office building with it’s accompanying war monument. “It’s got to be around here somewhere...” I said to myself, standing on the corner and peering at the street signs. Hale St. And there it was, Adelle’s Coffee House.

The atmosphere was half ‘good friend’s kitchen’ and half ‘abandoned store front.’ The coffee was very good, and the little piece of sweet bread I purchased was likewise. The patrons were young, and it seemed to be a place for friends to meet, as there were always greetings and ‘catching up on news’ constantly floating through the air.

Things I noticed:

The refrigerator in the little kitchen corner was covered with magnets, and notes. I mean, completely covered. Some must have been left over from Valentine’s day, as there were lots of pink hearts. Looked like there were little individual words, too, affixed to magnets that could be arranged into sentences or quips, and I wondered if that’s how the baristas spend their spare moments...

The coffee menu was written on a chalkboard in different colors. And there were little plastic skeletons hanging in front of it. A little creepy, and decidedly quirky.

The young patrons were all dressed in a very drab fashion, as if they took their color cues from the late winter, gray and brown and black, landscape. Color must be out. Maybe it will return with spring.

I heard a young lady remark that the hot cocoa was very good. I’ll have to try it next time I go there...
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