Familiar Gives Way To Franchise

8 September 2001 - 5:00am

Rising rents close down a locally-owned coffee shop in Delray Beach, FL. It will be replaced by a Starbucks.

"If the regular customers of Delray Beach's Twilight Cafe could keep it open as is, they would. But rising rents -- the owners say it went from $8 a square foot eight years ago to $45 a square foot today -- means Twilight is vacating 205 E. Atlantic Avenue. It was only open for breakfast and lunch, but was known for its cozy feel. 'This is like food the way food should be made,' said Barry Cohen, a Palm Beach County judge surrounded with legal pads and papers at the lunch counter. 'I rarely go anyplace else but here.' Cohen likes the place so much, he scrawled out a tongue-in-check injunction to keep Starbucks from taking over the space."

Source: Sun-Sentinel, September 7, 2001
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Its very unsuitability for an urban center justifies its current usage as a suburban or ex-urban pattern.