Waiting for the Big Kahuna in Berlin

 Meet Ben the Bavarian. Ben came to Berlin, a city of opportunity, with at least two big ideas. The first idea was this: serve Hawaiian style coffee. The second, maybe more significant idea was this: serve drive-thru customers.
Ben is a cheerful, energetic fellow. He notes that his is the ONLY drive-thru coffee stand in all of Germany. This first-to-market stance excites him, though it hasn't yet  and seems to have awakened the customer base. Ben remains undaunted. Germans love their cars and love their coffee. It's only a matter of time, he believes, and when they come round he will be ready.

Plenty of room - no waiting

 Ben's stand is located in the Mitte, a rapidly developing district in East Berlin. Though there are vacant parcels to either side of his shop, it's very likely that will change soon.







The young, creative class that moved to East Berlin over the past decade and enlivened the city with imaginative pop-up art and homespun commercial ventures is rapidly being displaced by large-scale corporate development.

The huge, rumbling development industry is rolling into all corners of the city, assembling large plots of land for huge mixed use building projects. It's only a matter of time before Ben's little shop is displaced for something much larger, sleeker and more expensive. In the mean time, Ben will cheerfully brew you a cup of Kona coffee with a coconut milk foam. Prost!

Esprit de Cream

Edward, dishing the scoop.

I recently had the pleasure of wandering in downtown LA on a balmy summer's night. Once you leave the shiny business and museum district and head South and East, the streets start to feel softer, freer, like old familiar shoes (well worn, a bit scuffed, perhaps a bit pungent, too). People were hanging out on corners, browsing at the Last Bookstore, waiting for the bus - it's a real live gritty city, alright.

So imagine my surprise when I saw a brand new housing complex and what I took to be a hipster bike store near Fifth and Main. A cacphony of spinning gears and bobbing wheels in a tall picture window, a queue of people staring into their phones.

Peddler's also does house calls - with a portable churn.

Once inside, it became clear that something else was going on. A dapper fellow on a roller-racer was peddling away, cranking the whole moving window art piece with every stroke - but also churning ice cream! A long chain through the wall was turning an iced tub in the back room, churning out oodles of delicious ice cream and sorbet.



"Peddler's Creamery" is the brainchild of Edward Belden and a dedicated crew of idealists who are determined to think different. PC is a Benefit Corporation, a new class of business that considers social and environmental costs, as well as profit, in their business planning.
Hey, maybe corporations can be people after all...


Edward says the hardest part was the initial funding. Once he got a few committed partners, the momentum took off. Now, there is a 'Peddler's Club' - a de facto waiting list for the honor of spinning the ice cream churn.

Sophie churns, the kinetic window art turns like a clockwork.

Their excellent ice cream and sorbet features local, organic, dairy, non-dairy and vegan ingredients. They are committed to their local neighborhood; 5% of profits are donated to social and environmental causes.
Nouveau Cyclistes are alive and well in South LA, and the food scene is all the better for it.

Hungry for more info? Check out www.peddlerscreamery.com for the, ah, scoop.

Public Transportation

Addison is bringing bike repair to the people. For those who are lazy, preoccupied, procrastinating or simply too cheap to keep their bikes in good running repair, he could be your savior. If you stop in at Insight Coffee at 8th & S on a sunny Saturday morning, you might just find him outside the front door, laying out his tools and portable bench. He's been around the bike scene in Sacramento for some time, including a stint at Edible Pedal.

Addison's neat little pop-up street shop

What we like best about his operation is the thoughtful setup of his mobile shop. A place for every thing, not  too much everything, Just what's needed for a quick Saturday morning repair. It all breaks down to fit on a Surly trailer for the trek back to his permanent shop at 23rd & S Streets.

Stop by for a nice hot coffee, freshly and expertly brewed, and  get that nagging shifter or dragging brake cheerfully adjusted by an expert - while you sip.

Who knows? you might learn something new about your bike and have a better ride home to show for it.
At the very least you could have a friendly conversation with a knowledgeable fellow, trying to make the city a better place for bikes.

You can also find Addison at his shop, Public Transportation, near the corner of 23rd & S Streets in Sacramento

Free Mending Library

 Michael Swaine mends clothes for people for free. Let me repeat that. Michael Swaine - an artist and ceramics instructor at CCA - takes a day each month  for mending, sewing and repairing clothes for people in the Tenderloin neighborhood in San Francisco. He calls this the Free Mending Library and he's been at it for more than a decade.

 What first caught our eye is the simple economy of his operation. His rolling cart with a foot-treadle sewing machine, mending storage and built-in umbrella is spare and to the point. Michael started this - project? endeavor? -  as "Reap What You Sew" pushing his cart around town, basically looking for people who might want his services. Before long he figured out two things: 1) the Tenderloin was the most interesting neighborhood for human interaction, and 2) it's easier for people to find you if they know where you will be.

Michael eventually settled in outside the Luggage Store, an art collective at 509 Ellis Street, where he mends for free on the 15th of each month. He has hope that the Free Mending Library will expand naturally, as others with talent or time show up to simply help fix things - be that clothing, appliances, resumes or whatever. All are welcome - to give help, accept it, chat, debate or just share some time.

This may be a trend - the Amsterdam the Repair Cafe was founded 3 years ago, with all the community and government support one might expect from the Dutch.

In San Francisco, Michael Swaine remains a solo act, but there is real work happening here. Not commerce, not emerging technologies, not automation. For Michael the reward is that human interaction.


You can read more about the Free Mending Library HERE.  thanks to Darby Minnow Smith and GRIST.
You can see a short feature HERE