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The Time Warp Again
From The Slope of Hope: A little over thirty years ago, I made my first trip to Palo Alto. I lived in a little town called Moraga in the East Bay, and some friends of my girlfriend (now my wife) were going to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I had never seen the movie (and if you know Rocky Horror, you know that you don't really just sit there and watch it), and I had never been to Palo Alto. So, one night during a senior year in high school, off we went.
The place where they showed the movie was the Varsity theatre, a venerable cinema on University Avenue which had been there for decades. I had a great night, and I was practically rolling with laughter in the aisles from the movie. It was a very positive introduction to the town that would later become my home.
Well, the Varsity didn't show movies for many years after that. Running a movie theatre on one of the most valuable retail lanes in the San Francisco area was an economic mismatch. The revenue from ticket sales couldn't cover the rent on such a huge place, so eventually it was shuttered. The theatre sat, padlocked and empty, and it sat like a relic to an era of young fun nights and four dollar movie tickets.
It wasn't shut down forever, however. Borders Books took over the spot, and they transformed it into a really amazing retail space. The interior still had the look of an old theatre: even though the screen and seats were gone, you could stand in the middle of the store, with its gently curved high ceiling and grand steps up to the balcony, and remember how it used to be. I visited Borders countless times, and in those pre-Amazon days, it was often crowded with Palo Altans reading and buying the latest books.
This, too, was not a permanent situation. Times change, and rents keep going up, and even after a long run, Borders couldn't keep the place open anymore. Thus, after many years in business (with the beautiful movie marquee surrounded by neon lights still intact), Borders shut down its Palo Alto store. The padlocks returned.
The hiatus lasted even longer this time, with the Mediterranean style courtyard leading to the theatre gathering dust and birds' nests over the years. As valuable as the property was, it was surprising that it would sit idle and revenue-free year after year after year.
The former Varsity has entered yet another iteration, however. Here is what you will see as you approach the marquee today:
What's HANAHAUS, you ask? Well, I'm here to tell you. It's a place where you can walk inside, buy a coffee-based beverage, sit down, hang off the WiFi, and get some work done.
What's that? It sounds just like Starbucks, Peet's, or any other coffee place on the planet? Yeah, well, I guess you have a point there. But there's a big difference: you have to pay to sit down. Oh, and if you are to believe their home page from their web site.......it is:
A community of purpose defining a new café experience where creative individuals and entrepreneurs can come together to meet, socialize, share ideas and connect with experts.
The business model seems to be selling seats (by the hour). Now, to be sure, it's pretty nice inside. There are rows of high tables, and sofas, and relatively comfortable-looking chairs. And it's clear that many hundreds of thousands of dollars (if not a million or two) have gone into completely refurbishing and updating the interior space. There are even glass-walled meeting rooms.
It has all the appearance of the cafeteria of a Google or a Facebook: plenty of smart, young, ambitious clientele who dream of starting the next company with a name whose vowels are missing. Although, as I popped in today out of curiosity, it didn't seem to be overflowing with bodies:
There were a couple of employees at a welcome table, shown below, trying to explain what on earth this place was all about. I suspect many of the people who came in, like me, were wondering what transformation had taken place inside the ol' Varsity (where, although the ceiling is now an extraordinarily-expensive looking all-glass affair, one can still plainly see the aforementioned arched ceiling of the original theatre).
You can make out in the sign below that someoneused an erasable marker to strike out the normal $3.00/hour price and wrote "Free Today" next to it. I suspect this bargain is going to be intact for a little while.
Yet, again, for all the outstanding design choices, cleanliness, and high-end (Blue Bottle, naturally) coffee beverages, a visitor would have absolutely no trouble finding a place to rest their high-tech bones.
Indeed, the only portion of the facility bustling with humans was the cafe itself. Setting aside the millions spent renovating and furnishing the place, I shudder to think what all these personnel must cost every week:
Suffice it to say it's going to take a lot of $3 per hour charges to offset this investment and ongoing expense (and even more $0 per hour charges). But I don't mention all this to point out the challenge, to say the least, this business surely is going to face in the months ahead. A couple of different things spring to mind.
First, I'm reminded of the last time anything resembling an "Internet Cafe" showed up on University Avenue. It was in something like 1998, I believe. They charged much higher prices than $3/hour, and the big appeal at the time was that they had - gasp - Internet access. Even in Palo Alto, in those days the Internet was still something of a novelty, and a lot of people didn't really know how to get on it or use it. So this place (whose name obviously escapes me) had set up computers with wired Internet access and visitors could.........forgive the trite phrase.......surf the web.
I think they were in business for something like ten weeks.
Second, and more importantly, I think the appearance of HANAHAUS is yet another cultural marker, another saturation point, in my fair city. The appeal of this place isn't that it has coffee (God knows Palo Alto has enough coffee shops) or that it has WiFi or even that it has seats whose cushions are, to date, unstained.
The notion seems to be that anyone can walk into this magical little realm and, who knows, create The Next Big Thing. You can meet people there - perhaps planned, perhaps by accident - dream your dreams, code your code, and make your fortune. It's an ad hoc incubator for the public. A place where, just as anyone going to Hollywood can be a star, anyone who can put lines of code together can make the next WhatsApp, Instagram, or God-knows-what-else.
This zeitgeist is echoed a couple of miles south, still here in town, where a nicely-decorated storefront called CODER'S ACADEMY has opened. It's in the same vein as the franchised SCHOOL OF ROCK, and forgive me for being so cynical, but I find it achingly touching (and, frankly, exploitative) that businesses want to milk the dreams of children about being a rock star (or programmer) with these establishments. There's something almost cruel about it. That's just not how these things happen. I know the history of all the firms, and I've got a pretty good sense as to where tech talent comes from. It isn't from visiting a franchise. Honest.
Well, this will all sort itself out eventually. I can offer you my most solemn assurances that the Varsity will see those padlocks return, and the Coder's Academy will stand vacant, waiting perhaps something more normal like a bagel shop or insurance office to fill its space. In the meantime, just as at the height of the Internet bubble, those unfortunate souls like myself who have not yet gone stark raving insane have to keep cringing through this lunatic era. This isn't 1999 all over again. It's much, much worse. Promise.

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So who owns this property, that can afford to sit idle for years in an expensive area?
I was thinking of opening up a small coffee shop with caffiene and no caffiene coffee, a pot bellied stove and no wi fi and call it America Offline.
The waitress would bring the coffee and donut to you.
No expensive remodel in case it doesn't fly, but maybe people would actually speak to one another.
I wonder if it would work?
Substitute booze for coffee- no TVs. Call it a pub.
People actually speaking to each other? Surely you jest.
One cannot carry on a conversation and text at the same time.
It ain't rocket science. $15 cup of coffee served by some nubile young college girl in nothing but a thong will have young/old men lined up like Studio 54 in it's heyday.
That's a good guess, but you clearly don't know tech dudes, which is the kind of male human we have around here. Here's an old joke:
A young tech guy is walking along, and a frog near his feet yells up to him: "Pick me up, I'm a princess!!!" The guy picks up the frog, and it explains that it is really a princess who has been turned into a frog, and if he kisses it it will turn back into a gorgeous sexy girl who will be his very own. He smiles and puts the frog in his pocket. The frog then says "Wait, don't you understand, I'm a princess; and a gorgeous kindly one and sweet natured and rich and generous!!! Kiss me and I'm yours!!!" The tech guy keeps walking. Finally, after a few more attempts on the frog's part, the tech guy explains, "Well, I don't have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog, now that's cool."
I'm not so sure. Things are getting tired out there, and it's hard to grow a tree on solid rock. This one deserves a re-visit in about a year.
This is America....completely idiotic, actually insane, "investments" in hilariouly uneconomic enterprises subsidized by zero interest rates soon to be negative interest rates (the borrower is paid to borrow), all in an effort to keep the gigantic apparatus of worldwide embezelment afloat and paying the criminal class that runs it obscene profits, at your expense, er, impoverishment. Yet no one can see this elephant in the room, thanks to the syndcicates total control of the media, culture, education, etc. all calibrated to blind one from noticing the obscene levels of theft taking place , out in the open, right under our noses, 24/7 365 days a year. It is simply unfasionable to notice or care and especially to discuss it.
That's the same old tripe we here around here all the time.
But you stated it with such style I'm up arrowing you. ;>
I'm waiting for interest rates to go to about -5% before i borrow. That way i can make the payments solely with the interest im given
The thing is. ."the next big things" Dont start at hippie hangouts like this.
Its just marketing. Id like to see how many of these places :
a) survive / make money
And 2) became launchpads for 'the next big thing'
All hype. Hippie hype..the worst kind.
This will make a great tax write-off for somebody. Probably somebody big who has a lot of nostalgia for the old theatre.
They have far greater problems.
Very very simple:
The Water Is About To Run Out
People have not absorbed yet what this means. But California in ten years? I cannot even begin to imagine what this is going to look like. And the rest of the country, when 10s of millions of refugees begin fanning out?
On a fundamental level, it's always about resources. People have yet again conveniently overlooked what is staring them right in the face. That's about to change.
Time Warp????
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg-vgGuTD8A
So, you're (HANAHAUS (far too Teutonic)) stuck with a flat (fee).
Well, how about that.
On the bright side of things, it gave a few folks some jobs for a while and should be a nice little auction after they do close down.
I would like to pick up some of those chairs and tables and one of thoses lockers for the garage.
Palo Alto, nice place back in the old days.
Well, who knows? Perhaps some day soon, a group of bright young minds, seated around one of those long conference tables, will hatch a plan to once again make the old Varsity into a viable, productive, sensible business which, in a peculiar way, will vindicate the Hanahaus as having served its intended purpose. These things happen.
"How about a...MOVIE THEATER!"
A genius is born.
Bingo! Now why didn't I think of that?
Thanks Tim. Great piece and signs of the times.
When I first saw Palo Alto, it seemed a lot like any other American town, just a little overpriced and blessed with perfect weather. Time and fate happeneth to all men, and Dweebs;)
The Next Big Thingie...same as the Same Old Thingie...
There's a sucker born every millisecond.
"It's just a jump to the left,
and a step to the right!..."
The notion seems to be that anyone can walk into this magical little realm and, who knows, create The Next Big Thing. You can meet people there - perhaps planned, perhaps by accident - dream your dreams, code your code, and make your fortune. It's an ad hoc incubator for the public.
Give me a break!! Looks to me like Starbucks with a cover-charge! Just more snobbery out of the Bay Area (particularly Palo Alto) where 700 sq. ft. one bedroom houses go for $1,500,000. Does anyone really think that the guys with the money that can "turn your dreams into reality" are going to be hanging around in a joint like this?
My buddy runs the Shool of Rock in WPB and he is doing great things for the kids, thier parents and the Community you should check it out is name is Rick!
Well, I appreciate this article, since now I don't need to step into this place to check it out. It looks like an airport waiting area - completely unwelcoming and uncomfortable. When people in Silicon Valley leave their crapshacks and crapcondos and crapartments, they want to go somewhere to escape - hence the popularity of the Cheesecake Factory on University Ave. and Olive Garden on El Camino (I've never been in either but I've seen articles re the decor). Hanahaus looks like the anti-escape; it's like having the visual crappiness of your tech life shoved in your face.
Okay, if I were going to use this space, I would turn it into an adult version of Chuckie Cheese, for tech dudes. A giant, loud, sordid (but not too sordid) dark, neoned pinball parlor sort of place, with cheesy food and game tables and head-sets and virtual experiences and life-sized Dr. Whos, where you could get unbelievably caffeinated drinks and dress up (for real) in your online atavar's outfit. In a place like that, people might actually work out deals in some quieter corner.
Or, I would add loads of Viennese kitch and turn it into a tea house for ladies who lunch; there is no proper such place around here and there are loads of ladies who would like a big glistering tea palace, so they could go with their friends, and also bring their granddaughters and teach them how to eat properly. During an economic depression that form of escapism is especially popular; it could be a destination for out-of-towners. It could have a side room in which etiquette lessons are given.
. . . . where you could get unbelievably caffeinated drinks and dress up (for real) in your online atavar's outfit.
Given there was no "/sarc" anywhere my concern for the mental well-being of people in Silicon Valley just went off the chart . . . .
No sarc at all whatsoever, LOL.
Tim - you mean you never went to the epicenter of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, Cinema 150 on the El Camino...? C'mon man...!!! Lotta fun. They tore down that wonderful theatre too, bastards... As far as University Avenue goes these days - I can't take it either. Used to go up there in the mid 90's for chow at Il Fornaio, but wading through the crowds of Metrosexual Software Dweebs (Hmmm, I need some lyrics for that...), is too much to stomach today. Indeed, it's looking very 'peaky' out there. Then there is the din of house flipping seminar ads on the radio to basically seal the deal... Ah well, here's to Tim Curry & the gang - 'Let's do the Time Warp again...!!!'
'History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme'. Twain.
...and often must louder and longer than before compliments of the Translyvanian banksters, narcististic 'authorities' and the unquestioning sheeple.
Protect yourself.