I travel a lot in my work. But today I am home, and a little later, like I do most days I am in town, I will likely go down the road to Pawlet, and have breakfast at Pawlet Station.

Pawlet Station lives in a small railway station that was moved to Pawlet decades ago. It’s been a lot of things in it’s history, and for the past few years, it’s been a restaurant serving breakfast and lunch. The food is reliably good and flavorful, cooked fresh right where you can see it. The atmosphere is warm. The service is always friendly. All good things, but that’s not the only reason I go there.

I go because it’s real. It’s local. I meet people from the area and get to know them there. For someone like me who moved to Vermont from far away Virginia, having a place like this is like gold.

There used to be a lot more places I could do this. When I first moved to Vermont, I used to have a cup of coffee and breakfast at Dutchies right in my little town. Eric and Will were great about introducing me to people as they came and went and slowly, I began to put names to faces. At times, coming back from out of town, I’d stop at Mach’s store and pick up some groceries and the local news. On Fridays, I’d go to Sherman’s Store in Rupert and get their meat lover’s pizza, a ridiculously decadent thing that put Pizza Hut to shame, and there too, I would meet and make friends.

People wouldn’t just come to these places to get things. They came there to connect. To talk. To catch up. The storekeepers and waitresses were almost like the proverbial bartenders, listening to people’s woes and celebrations, Show up regularly and you became a regular. Life was shared. You took home friendship and warmth as well as a loaf of slightly high priced bread or a bottle of wine for dinner.

Notice I wrote the last two paragraphs in the past tense.

Dutchie’s burnt down and never was able to rebuild. Mach’s after a long struggle, closed it’s doors a couple of month’s ago. Sherman’s is hanging on by it’s fingernails.

Everyone I know in the area bemoans the loss of these places. There is a sense of loss, not just of a store, but a sense of place. Often, these small stores and restaurants are the last commercial enterprise in our New England towns, and when they die, something of the town dies with them. The town is no longer a place to go to. It’s just a place with a few houses. The community loses some it’s identity because the place where we all gather and share no longer exists.

Retail is hard. At it’s best it’s hard. And for these small stores and restaurants, it’s harder. They don’t have volume buying power. They don’t have advertising budgets. They work crazy hard because they can’t afford a lot of help. They struggle because they love what they do, and they love those of us who live in these small communities. And we often love them. But we forget that everything has a price.

The price really isn’t the money, it’s being mindful.

Yes, it costs a little more than going two towns over to the chain stores, but I’ve done the math. Most of the time, by the time I’ve saved myself fifty cents for the loaf of bread or the can of soup at the chain store two towns over, it’s still about a break even affair by not having to drive ten or twenty miles each way.

What I am buying is not the cup of coffee. I am buying community. I am buying life and a gathering place and a sharing place for my little place on the earth. I am buying life for the towns I love. I get to meet with the neighbors. I get to be part of something. Pretty much worth a few extra coins in my life. Because community is invaluable. And hard to come by.

But we have to think about it. About what is valuable. And that is the price.

Where’s your place? That local place that you love? Isn’t it time you became a regular? Think about it.

Me? I’m heading to Pawlet Station later this morning for some breakfast and coffee. They have wi-fi, so I can write and work while I am there. The food is good. The prices are good. The company is good. A lot of good conversation will be had. Who knows who I will get to see?

I’ll be in the corner booth.

Tom