Resort towns in the Midwest tend to follow the same pattern. A downtown, some shops. The outskirts of the downtown, some big box stores. In the downtown you’ll find some stores that sell sunglasses, some that sell ice cream. Some that sell t-shirts. Some of those t-shirts are geography specific, like “I drove all the way to Michigan and all I got was this crappy t-shirt”. That’s one of my favorites. Some of the shirts are specific to nothing, except to whiling away time. A clock with a beer on it and the minute hand pointing to the 6. That’s a staple of resort town wares. There will be some restaurants, some good others bad. Mostly bad. These are the strings that tie a Midwest resort town together.
At Lake Geneva, we have those same strings. We have some t-shirt shops, obnoxious each one. We have some places to buy fudge. We have ice cream shops. How Coldstone Creamery survives in the downtown high rent atmosphere I’ll never understand. Two ice cream concoctions for your two toddlers? That’ll be $14.55. We have restaurants to buy bad food, and some to buy good food. We have old bars, we have some new bars. We have old hotels and new hotels. We have all the trappings of your typical, boring Midwest resort town.
But these are the things we have in common with other towns, the things that exist in each town because some town somewhere decided to try it all first. Increasingly, small resort towns are getting better, they’re getting more interesting stores, more interesting t-shirt designs, better restaurants and better food. For all those food improvements, our local coffee scene is sorely lacking. Fontana has the Coffee Mill, which is nice. Williams Bay has Boxed and Burlap, also nice. But Lake Geneva has a coffee scene that’s been on the decline. Boatyard Bagels brought Intelligentsia to our cups, and it was nice while it lasted. Boatyard has since closed, not due to a failed business idea or lack of market interest, but because the building they leased ended up selling to someone who had a different goal for the space. I miss that space.
Across the street, Caribou Coffee sold to Peet’s Coffee and then Peet’s caved to the heavy burden of downtown Lake Geneva rent. I liked that shop not for their coffee, but for the marble. So much marble. It was good for town and I’m sad that today the landlords of that building are still advertising the space, and the adjacent space as FOR RENT. The rent’s too damn high, but that’s none of my business. Across town we have Starbucks, which remains an anchor. There’s another Starbucks in the Target, but that’s not a place you’d go because of the Starbucks, you’d just stop there if you’re buying whatever it is people go to Target to buy (disclaimer: I hate Target, for no particular reason. It reminds me of Prange Way, so maybe that’s why). There’s a rumored new Starbucks coming to the empty lot to the North and West of the Lake Geneva Walmart, so that’ll make three Starbucks within a mile radius.
Across from Starbucks is Geneva Java, which sounds like it might be okay but I’ve never been in there. Down the road you can go to Simple for breakfast, but you better only feel like drip-coffee, because that’s all they serve. The bakery next door surely has an espresso machine and a capable barista, right? Don’t be silly. You can get drip coffee there, too, and you better like it. A morning danish is wonderful, but if I can’t wash it down with an Americano, is it worth the effort? Simple is the best breakfast in town, and the bakery is the best bakery in town, but would it kill them to invest a few grand in an espresso machine? Apparently.
Perhaps their lack of espresso-ness left an opening in town, considering Boatyard is gone and so is Peet’s, and the Starbucks triangle is farther East. With the newly renovated, super art-deco Geneva Theater now open, the traffic on the West side of Broad Street should be picking up, which should breathe life into the space that has been so many different things over recent years. Good Vibes was some sort of musical, or perhaps a restaurant, I’m not certain. The Creperie resided in this spot for a bit, but I can’t say I ever saw the CLOSED sign flipped to OPEN. Now this space, the space right to the south of the theater, is home to yet another business. I went there yesterday to see what it was all about.
Avant Cycles was previously located in Delavan, behind the giant elephant and next to the karate shop. I never went there. Now Avant Bicycle and Cafe has made the move to Lake Geneva, and they’ve opened in that recently renovated, nicely appointed space at 234 Broad Street. The store has a coffee shop in the front and a bike shop in the back, a combination sure to thrill bearded hipsters and bag clutching tourists alike. My mountain biking career was short lived when I discovered how much I hate mountain biking, but my love of coffee persists. The space here is comfortable, stylish, and I think it’s a tremendous thing for town. It brought something interesting to a revolving door location, and if we’re to make Avant last in this spot we’ll need to buy some coffee from them. And maybe a few bikes, too.
And that’s the thing about Lake Geneva. It has the cheesy trappings of every resort town, but it’s continually improving and that’s all I ask of it.