Before Hipster Coffee Ruined Your Neighborhood

The Reader’s archive is vast and varied, going back to 1971. Every day in Archive Dive, we’ll dig through and bring up some finds.

For years, the “Our Town” section of the Reader profiled ordinary Chicagoans doing ordinary things. You’d read about it for the way the writing brought them to life.

Neal Pollack’s 2000 “Coffee Club Closes,” is a perfect example—some 2,300 words on Don Selle, the crotchety Rogers Park cafe owner who’s dying to get rid of his customers, shut down his business, and ________. Despite himself, it seems, Selle managed to become beloved, if curmudgeonly, member of the community:

Selle managed to finally shut down the Coffe Club