SIAP: Elixir Vitae (Cafe Ambrosia) closed in January. Long live Jimmy!
Thanks to the Espresso Royale thread, I tried to check in on Cafe Ambrosia. I was really sad to see Ed shut it down. I couldn't find this posted earlier, so here it is:
Does anyone know what happened?
I saw Jimmy basically every day for years. I never knew his last name, though, and I'd never googled him before now, so I also just saw this article about him for the first time:
I'm glad Jimmy's "couple more years" lasted long enough to see me through three degrees. If you see this, Jimmy, tell me how to get in touch with you.
I'm really surprised a lot of these places never seemed to do a GoFundMe (or similar).
For a lot of the single-location (non-franchise) businesses right downtown, I feel like they would get community support. Literati got $100,000 in like 3 or 4 days.
Could it be like a shame thing? Or? I get it (grew up Catholic!) but if this is your livelihood what else do you have to lose at that point?
Not at all the same but similar, my Dad was in an accident last year that was life altering. Insanely large medical bills for short term and larger for long term care started to come in and I offered to start a GoFundMe to try to help them and neither of my parents were interested in it at all, the reason they gave was "shame."
Needing help is nothing to be ashamed because it's incredible what can happen when you ask for help.
What's shameful is that your parents were put in such a challenging pecuniary situation due to the bad luck of an accident. The fact that our healthcare system puts so many people on the brink of financial disaster is a disgrace.
I hope your father is well, and that your parents were able to get by without too much difficulty.
Heartwarming story: Little girl sells lemonade to raise money for her dying mother's surgery.
I completely agree with you and while my parents are able to "survive," many others in the same situation aren't and that's simply not good enough.
Thank you for the kind words and well wishes.
Jimmy was the man with the morning elixir on many mornings on my way to the office in the Arcade.