The Shop

Mark Camp started renting the building in 1994 for two hundred dollars a month and used it for welding and for band practice. It had been a transmission repair shop, and there was still a bullet hole in the door. The coffee shop opened in March 1999, and people told him he was crazy for trying.

South Perry was not then what it is now, and The Shop is generally credited with turning it. The garage bay doors are still the whole architecture of the place. In warm weather they go up and the parking lot fills with metal patio tables and oil drums planted with pansies, and the walls carry work by artists from the neighborhood.

The coffee is Anvil, by the cup or by the pound. The kitchen bakes its own bread and focaccia, in gluten free and ordinary versions, alongside sandwiches, soup, quiche and a pastry case with a lot of vegan in it. In summer it anchors the Thursday market, and it screens films from its own parking lot onto the side of the building next door.