A Point of Personal Interest

This post is going to reveal more about me than I usually share in the blog-o-sphere, but oh well. It’s for a good cause.

When I was an undergraduate at Yale, I ate breakfast at the Yankee Doodle Coffee Shop, affectionately known as “The Doodle,” every Friday. Some of my favorite college moments were sitting in the twelve-stool diner, eating my $2 deliciously fluffy scrambled eggs with an English Muffin, and chatting with the owner and operator Rick Beckwith, whose grandfather first opened the Doodle 58 years ago. I never competed in the doodle hamburger eating competition because I knew I had no shot at coming close to the record of 26, or 27, or 28. But I dream about those eggs.

And now, because of “financial considerations” the Doodle, which has been open since 1950 in the same spot, is closed. The Yale-funded gentrification that swept Urban Outfitters, J. Crew, and Au Bon Pain into New Haven has now robbed the city of one of its real treasures (and yes, New Haven haters, there are treasures in the city).

But hopefully the Doodle will not remain closed forever. There’s a movement afoot to Save the Doodle.

All of which is just to ask that any of you who have any connection to Yale, have ever eaten at the Doodle while passing through New Haven, have ever had a favorite coffee shop drive out of business by the big chain stores, please help save the Doodle. And then, when it reopens, make a little trip to New Haven and try the scrambled eggs.