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Way back in the mid-nineties
I had a job in a building on the corner of Lafayette and Prince down
in Soho. I worked there for a couple years, and the entire time thought
of Dean and DeLuca as the place where fancy coffee-drinking adults
got their scones and shit. It's thirteen years later, and my perception
hadn't really changed when they opened this Times Square location.
For some reason it seemed to me like opening a Bergdorf's in Parsippany--a
disconnect in audience, and the mainstreaming of a storied (but only
in my head) franchise. So it was with great reverence that I, now
a thirty-something fancy coffee-drinker myself, walked through D&D's
glorious steel and glass entryway. Built in the style of the rest
of the NYT building in which it resides, the space is airy, bright
and bordering on majestic (again, probably only in my head). I was
instantly transported back to the post-grunge era when, as a wide-eyed
twenty-three year old I went to fetch fresh cut flowers and pounds
of whole bean Kenyan Sumatu for the office. I looked up at the beautiful
sandwich board, the glass counter and quickly plummeted to earth when
I realized how lousy the pre-made grub selection was. I bit into my
tuna sandwich and with every salty, capery bite I was thrust further
and further towards the reality that this is just a sandwich shop
and I'm just another working drone with a false sense of the past.
[MF]
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