| rev:text
| - A dump. Yet, one of my secret hiding places. You see, years ago, I used to come to Tequila Bookworm's old location which was about a block east. Such an excellent hide out!
Okay, so let me tell you, in its current iteration, Tequila Bookworm gets three stars NOW but it gets one more due to my personal and biased memories of the place.
The place was so interesting back then... No sign upfront to tell you the name of the place because %#@^%$#$ capitalism. Once you walked in, a long Cafe was before you. A coffee/liquor bar to he left, with stools for you to chill at, a magazine rack to the right, where if you bought anything from them you were allow to browse and take back to your table(!). In the back three couches and a number of small tables with three huge (8-10 feet high) bookcases on each wall, shock full of books as a backdrop. Which you could pick and browse at your leisure.
I used to go there with one of my best friends, have a coffee and smoke cigarettes (yes, it was that long ago) and just chill and talk about art, girls, work and school. What an awesome place it was!
Then it changed, and then, changed again. So now Tequila Bookworm is a little bit lost.
They want to retain their Avant-garde vibe they had before, however the first floor now feels and looks like any other indie Cafe I have gone in Queen street West, or Dundas West or on Leslie or at the Junction or pretty much anywhere else. So that vibe they had before is kinda gone. Yes, they are down with the usual and cliché art photography hanging from the walls and the small wall of books that now just seems, well, almost forced.
They try to have live music and other artistic events, which do help, however again it feels a bit on the forced side now, and on their second floor, they have a patio, which is welcomed during the Summer, yet feels like a musky, dirty old house where you are supposed to have your coffee there during winter months. So ironically, the size upgrade has negatively affected its old cozy factor.
Also, this place used to be a chillin' spot, not a laptop hobo depot. Which anyone will tell you will hurt your art/creative cred if you got a bunch of hipsters & yuppies (sorry hipsters and yuppies) hanging around taking up your space. So instead of ongoing conversations you got tables filled with people, by themselves, staring into screens. With their glowing Apple logos facing you, reminding you that you can't seat there, almost as if saying "Can't seat here dude, 'cause you know, I am like, so creatin' over here!"
Come on! That's what Starbucks are for!
I know they say that memories are horribly biased and I am sure I am experiencing just that.
Is Tequila Bookworm a bad place? No. Is it as good as it used to be? Nope.
Since right now it feels like it wants to be a bit of everything to everyone. However when one shoots for that and misses, you end up being not the best at anything for anyone.
Check the place out though. It definitely deserves a look, you might like it, specially if you live in the hood. Too bad it is no longer my hiding spot. :-(
PS:. Although a bit out of tune, I enjoyed coming down and playing the piano on the second floor while sipping on my coffee. That used to be fun!
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)