Welcome to "Under the Tongue"

by Christine Neilson

Coffee House Chatter

"I don't want to live in a town where I can find a parking spot." This LA transplant shares over coffee and tea on Lily's patio. He says he revels in the adrenaline rush of circling the block like a vulture, snaking into a space, outwitting other spot seekers. Memories of  Joni Mitchell's 1970s tune "Big Yellow Taxi" are conjured up: "Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you got till it's gone, they paved paradise, put up a parkin' lot" starts ringing in my ears.

Joni Mitchell - Big Yellow Taxi

Another song lyric grabs me on another sojourn to Lily's. It's a rainy, gray Saturday morning. A trio cozy up to gossip. "Johnny Depp (actor) critcizes America. He lives in France . . . it's just not right. Hollywood gave him his start and all the money he makes." I  mentally scream "Hello, Depp said this seven years ago in a 2003 interview with a German magazine, Stern. He was unhappy with the war as well as some of the policies implemented by the current Bush administration." So here it is, "Get Over It" by the Eagles:

All this whinin' and cryin' and pitchin' a fit. Get over it, get over it. Whew!

Baywood Park

Let's move on down the road to Baywood Park's 2nd Street in Los Osos. The key here is the number "two."

One may query why, within a two block business district, there are two Mexican restaurants, two coffee houses, and two bed and breakfast inns? Is tourism thriving? Are the business owners highly competitive? Is there a feud a brewin'?

When I moved to the Central Coast in 1985, the Back Bay Inn was a "rustic" motel. In the '90s, when a newly constructed, sleek, contemporary office building across the street went belly-up, a B&B popped up—the Baywood Inn. Thus, the gauntlet was tossed.

The Back Bay Inn owners broke out the paint and flower boxes, creating an updated exterior.

At the entrance to the Back Bay Inn parking lot, Coffee 'n' Things, run by the Baywood Navy creator, continued to flourish.  It was the place to mingle with regulars. When the proprietor retired a couple of years ago, a young female barista stepped up. She changed the name to Good Tides, but her stay was transitory.

The Back Bay Inn's owner's son wanted into the brewing action, so the Good Tides owner was pushed out. She struck a deal across the street (of course).

Again, the paint cans came out to spruce up the coffee house, renaming it the Back Bay Cafe to widen appeal.

How are you doing? Keeping up with this rhetoric?

Now on to the final two—the south of the border appeal. For many years, a Spanish abode has housed a Mexican restaurant. Currently it's Maya's.

A mirror image is perched across the street—La Palapa Mexican Cuisine and Seafood—that replaced a short-lived wine tasting venue, the Mare Blu, and an old local haunt the Salty Pelican, a restaurant that offered a cozy ambience surrounded by a garden atrium up the side to the front door.

I hear the iconic watering hole, the Merrimaker, will soon be up for sale. A possible dual for a duet?

Wait, what is that I hear? Come gather 'round people, Wherever you roam, And admit that the waters, Around you have grown - "The Times They Are A-changin'"  - Bob Dylan.

(Proprietor names have been omitted to protect the innocent.)

Doe Image on Banner by Tulip Fleurs