Short Stop

I love beginnings. Just this morning i sat in a converted doublewide trailer. Some years ago it had been converted into a coffee shop called the Short Stop. No, that’s not right. Garrett, the backwards hat wearing local, he bought it from the previous owners. I don’t know what it was called before he took over. Why at 23 did he buy a doublewide coffee shop in the heart of Ballard’s industrial district?

I only know part of that story. And the parts that i know of involved a blonde haired beauty and a broken heart. He wanted her and she wanted a coffee shop so he bought her one, the same one she was working at the day he spotted her through the drive thru window.

But that was four years ago. She's gone now and he's still here, taking care of her dream long after his walked out the door. Garrett makes sandwiches, pours coffee and serves truckers, forklift operators and dockworkers. With his hands immersed in soapy water he tells me about his plans to put in a bar along the wall with enough power outlets to service his wifi customers. We then talk about local bars. He tells me about his favorites haunts and I share a couple of my own.

There’s a scratching that comes from the room next to me. It’s his puppy. A beautiful blue eyed husky named Sahara. His baby. He lets her out and she runs around, drinks some water and introduces herself to the few folks sitting around the shop. It's lunchtime now. Workers wearing blue overalls with their name stitched to the front come inside and order bowls of chili. Garrett’s busy now, too busy to finish his story. That will have to wait for another day.