Long Wong's - Mill Avenue, Tempe

I think it moved to the other side of University still on Mill, but part of the charm was all of the grafitti my friends and I had left all over the walls and ceiling years ago. I can't really say if the move impacted the food because I never actually ate there... we only went to see local bands in the bar area. In the 90s, we'd go see the Fake McCoys every Tuesday night without fail. I think the Fake McCoys jumped the shark when they got a new bassist who insisted on wearing a cow costume during the shows. Then they lost their guitarist, who was awesome. I think the main attraction of the band, Ralo, now roams the Jerome scene.

Swenson's Ice Cream Parlor

REALLY good roast beef croissant sandwich, my favorite flavor of icecream - chocolate raspberry truffle, and the coolest stained glass grapes. One time I asked the waitress if she could bring me an extra bowl for me to put my bubblegum in (from my bubblegum icecream) and she brought me a whole bowl of bubblegum. Mmm, I think will fix myself a bowl of peppermint right now... melted slightly so its creamy coolness can just slllllide down my throat. Anyway, this was also the only place I could stand to eat ranch dressing, for whatever reason. I'm not sure why they went out of business in the Phoenix Metro-area, but some fun kid memories.

Changing Hands Bookstore - Mill Avenue, Tempe

The layout of the old Mill Avenue store was amazing... 3 different rooms and a mezzanine with lots of places to curl up and flip through photos of cats painting. I used to ride the bus from North Phoenix in highschool and check out the earings and lime-green Doc Martens in the store behind it, but Changing Hands was always the headliner. I was naive to believe all bookstores were this cool when they weren't in a mall, but my little book haven was hit with a rent increase which moved it to a strip mall several miles South of the university.

Tragedy? No. I'm slowly warming up to the new Changing Hands location, but it's taken approximately 8 years. What's missing? The little corners to curl up in, the railing to peer over and find my companion who likes to spend hours and could be anywhere, and the gobs and gobs of stationary, pins and gifts sprinkled throughout the store like a bizarre treasure hunt. Yes, it was THAT good. Barnes and Noble, Bookstar, etc, etc could never compare.

Gentle Strength Natural Foods Co-Op

I'm not exactly sure what happened. I moved away for a few years, I come back, and what happens? An entire building, parkinglot, and garden vanish completely with no trace of their existence. The Natural Foods Co-Op just off of University in Tempe may have succumbed to the saturation of the health food market, had a hard time adjusting to a new area, or simply had bad business practices, but not long after their move south, the store closed its doors for good.

Gentle Strength had been on the forefront of the ecological and organic health food movements. This was the only place in town one could take their recyclable items if their residence provided none. The store also had its own garden and allowed patrons to be part of the community by volunteering for store discount. Regretably, they did not survive, and neither did their legacy in the building they once inhabited so close to the University. Now where the city has such a large population of students and visitors, there's an empty lot, a hole in the fabric which adversley affects businesses nearby. When will developer's get it right, and stop making graveyard's out of our cities?

Eggplant Sandwich at Cheba Hut

Why???????????????????????????????????????????????

Silver Dollar Club

This is the music venue I payed $5 to get in, get sweaty, and be a self-conscious teenager. I remember pulling my drenched Dead Milkmen t-shirt off my skin as I sat on the curb. I remember sweating like hell when Dick from Citizen Fish moaned in a smoky red light "Phoenix... nothing more than... Phoenix," (crowd protests). I remember staring at the rubber arms of Tre Cool, drummer for Green Day as I tried to dodge the sputtering stream of Billy Joe's saliva. I often sat on the stage near the speaker because a) I was too short to see from anywhere else b) punkers like to squish short people and c) I'd been ditched by my moshing boyfriend.

I went to all of their closing shows.
RIP Silver Dollar. You could not be replaced.

Ed Debevic's

It may have been called Mel's Diner, but the place really belonged to Vera, Alice, and Flo - a show we watched (Alice) religiously in the 80s. Ed Debevic's came to town, and we thought, well kiss my grits, we have come home to Mel's Diner. It was a 50s diner that even had waitresses named Alice and Flo.
My favorites were the Fritos bag slit open and topped with chili and cheese and the little donut holes they injected with jelly and shook up with powdered sugar in a small paper sack - they served it in the sack, too. Later, in my college years, we'd go there after clubbing all night and nosh on the wet fries. Gravy... on french fries? This must have been some new crazy bohemian thing! ;) It Was Heaven. And still after all those years, when someone played Blue Moon on the juke box, the waitresses would hop up on a table and dance.
When Ed Debevic's closed and Alice was no longer on TV, I figured it was the end of an era. *sniff* But... then a few years later my girlfriend told me about Pat's Cafe - this was the place Mel's Diner was actually based on. So, maybe all was not lost. And, we went. And, well... the place smelled of burnt coffee, the food was greasy, and the waitresses were cranky... just like Mel's Diner.