Someday Cafe granted a stay of execution

By Christelle Valembrun

  Chrissy Texeira has been buying her coffee at the Someday Caf√© since it opened in 1992. A single mother, Texeira regularly brings her young child to the caf√© at the corner of Holland and Dover to connect with old, and new, friends of the family.
   ‚ÄúThis place is like magic to me and my son, it‚Äôs filled with family for us,‚Äù she said.

    Texeira  was one of more than 50 people at the Someday Cafe Sunday afternoon who gathered to address Peter Creyf, owner of Mr. Crepe ‚Äì the restaurant that has taken over the lease for the space that now houses the popular coffee spot. The crowd gathered to convince Creyf to try to find a new home elsewhere in Davis Square and allow the Someday to survive intact.
    Also in attendance were Ward 6 Alderman Rebekah Gewirtz and Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone. Curtatone said he, Creyf and Gewirtz are working together to find a new location for Creyf and his business but have only 7 to ten days to do so, before Creyf must start planning for a September 1 opening of his franchise.
    ‚ÄúI have a sense of optimism here but there are no guarantees we‚Äôll find the perfect solution,‚Äù Curtatone said. ‚ÄúWe have seven to ten days tops.‚Äù
    The latest installment in the saga of the Someday Caf√© began when owner Gus Rancatore forgot to renew his lease and the owner of the building, Richard Fraiman, quickly made plans for Creyf and Mr. Crepe to move in.
   Jeff Hale, Glen Wallace, and Steve Stevens opened the Someday Cafe about 13 years ago, hoping to capitalize on the coffeehouse trend that had swept Seattle. They started the business in a cart in Central Square but when the shop opened in the heart of Davis Square, it was quickly embraced by coffee aficionados eager for quality java and by city officials anxious to turn around the moribund Square, where small businesses had been struggling to bounce back from the economic lag of the 1970s and ’80s.
    Today, the coffee shop draws a diverse group of tattooed and dreadlocked artists, college students and retirees, who patronize the shop as much for each other as the coffee. The right side of the Someday is usually filled with students and entrepreneurs of internet businesses who are there to work or study. On the left is a livelier locale. People laugh and mingle with one another as they sip their coffee.
   "The Someday Cafe represents more than an ordinary coffee shop, it’s a place where people get together, and that’s worth preserving," Gewirtz said.
   The Someday Cafe is so valued that its employees have joined in the effort to keep it open.
   Danielle Sullivan, a current manager at the coffee shop who has been working there for more than 3 years, described her staff’s goal, "the other employees and I have been trying to get a cooperative; we want to buy the lease off the owner."
   Sullivan said they are putting together a business plan, and the community has pledged to help.
"People have donated labor and counter hours once we are up and running," she said.
   One suggestion to keep the Someday alive while including Mr. Crepe, is for the businesses to be synthesized and share the space.
   But Creyf said that bringing two businesses together ‚Äúwould be like a marriage of two people who don’t know one another." He said that operating under the same roof would be difficult because of complicated matters like hiring employees and managing payroll.
   ‚ÄúOne of the reasons the Someday is in trouble is because of mismanagement and I‚Äôm not sure I want to get involved with that,‚Äù Creyf said.
   Creyf previously owned a Mr. Crepe restaurant on 83 Holland Street, but the business closed because he was unable to get the lease renewed and his restaurant needed a bigger space. Creyf said Freiman got in touch with him to explore the possibility of being a new tenant and he was, and still is, very excited to be there.
   Creyf said a final solution to the dilemma must be found within 10 days or else his business plan will be severely hurt.
   But for Chrissy Texeira, it is not Creyf‚Äôs business venture that is at stake in the next week and a half.
   ‚ÄúAll I‚Äôm hearing about is business, business, business. But to me family is the most important thing in the world,‚Äù she said. ‚ÄúFamily should come before the almighty dollar and family is what is here at the Someday.‚Äù