Former Someday Café owner, Jeff Hale, 36, leaves a legacy of more than just coffee beans

By Elizabeth McNamara 

      Jeff Hale, one of the three originators of Davis Square’s Someday Café, passed away in his Medford apartment last week after a seven-year bout with leukemia.  He was 36.
Long time friends best remember the sunshiny, happy attitude that he had – even on rainy, grumpy, Monday mornings at 5 a.m., the time he regularly opened the coffee shop for business. 
      The Someday Café, also started by Steve Stevens and Glen Wallace, opened in 1994 and offered a friendly, trendy atmosphere that drew many Somerville locals to hang out and lounge over a cup o’ joe, jabber over espresso shots, or do work on their laptops while sipping a mug of green tea.

         “It’s kind of a hippie baby-boomer place,” Rancatore, said about the coffee and ice cream shop in a previous interview.  Rancatore, 55, is the current owner of Someday and friend of Hale. 
“The Someday is this slacker Generation-X spot,” he said.  “I hate generalizations; I hesitate using them, because I don’t want to exclude anybody.  But it’s true…[Today] Somerville is much more diverse; and you’ll find lots of different people moving in – lots of young professionals and different people from all over the world.”
         Friends said Hale was the same way: an upbeat, earthy hippie with a businessman’s twist. 
         “Through Someday he knew a lot of businessmen,” said Anna Shapiro, another friend of Hale.  “Jeff loved people and was incredibly easy to talk to.  And because of that he always made friends of every type.”
         Shapiro said Someday Café was the “tipping point” of Davis Square. 
          Hale was born in Bellevue, Washington. He came to Boston at 23-years-old after graduating from Evergreen State and used this West hometown Coast connection to draw the early ‘90s Seattle coffee craze to the Boston area.
         “Before [Someday Café], Davis Square wasn’t much of a destination point,” said Shapiro. “Because that time – with the grunge and the rock music – was a time in-between the boom of Steve’s [ice cream] in the 70s and what you see now.
          “He was a real visionary,” she said.  “He used the people he met at the coffee shop to learn about so many different trades: artists, writers, business, economics – you name it.”
           Shapiro, 35, said Mr. Hale loved to learn and – even in the depths of his illness – he strove to work at whatever business project lay in front of him.
          “While he was so sick and his body had no function, he never let his mind go,” she said in a phone interview Friday.  “He never stopped feeding his mind.”
          Though Hale left Someday Café when it sold to Rancatore in 2001, Shapiro said he never left his business motivations, despite his cancer.
         “He was a real visionary enthusiast,” she said.  “He was highly involved with environmental economics and the concept of bio-diesel.  You know: that’s where they take the oil from French fries and refine it and use it for fuel.” 
          This recent interest most likely spurs from Hale’s formal study of in environmental economics at Antioch New England Graduate School and those who crossed his path while at Someday Café, said Shapiro.
         “His character and the local vibe had a good kismet together,” she said.
          Hale is survived by his mother, Ginny, and his father, Ross of Bellevue; and by his sister, Kelley Gemma of Cary, North Carolina.  A memorial service was held Sunday in the Underground Center for the Arts in Randolph, Vermont.