Two Different Worlds on Beacon Street
By Philip Perlmutter

Though Barry's Deli and Starbucks in Waban Square in Newton are on opposite sides of Beacon Street, they are worlds apart in customers, menus and service.

Barry's is ethnic, brash, noisy, and neighborly, like a New York Jewish deli. Starbucks is nonsectarian, quiet, police, and dignified, like a library reading room.

At Barry's you go to "fress" or "nosh"—stuff yourself or snack on—lean or regular corned beef, lox, salami, pastrami, latkes, knishes, or dozens of other items and variations thereof, with or without cream cheese, sour cream, or coleslaw.  Gourmands from outside Newton also go there, including some peripathetic New York "mavens" like Jackie Mason.

On the other side of Beacon Street, near the Waban Avenue MBTA tracks, is Starbucks, which is for nonfressers, the gourmets who like their latte, cappucino, macchiato, or Americano in one of three sizes—tall, grande, and venti.  They are the connoisseurs of fancy coffee and pastry, with no qualms about paying a bill for a latte and chocolate brownie that could get them an "Artie's Ultimate Fresser" combo of turkey, roast beef, corned beef, Swiss cheese, onion, coleslaw, Russian dressing, and mustard.  Plus a coffee with bottomless refills.

Barry's is also for the young adults who never learned how to prepare anything but a nonfrozen TV dinner, for the retired citizens who forgot how to cook, and for all generations who are too rushed or too tired.  No one is embarrassed going to Barry's to buy chicken soup, roast brisket, or a barbecued chicken, because that's what their neighbors do.  Barry's is their live-out cook, whose meals are more filling than the best of Newton's other live-out cooks, the Chinese restaurants and pizza parlors.

Barry's is also for the early risers—retirees, salesmen, lawyers, and businessmen who hunger for some nourishment before going to work as well as someone to schmooze, kibbitz, gab, and/or argue with.  Starting at 5:30 in the morning, they can always find someone—if not another customer, then one of the countermen; and if not either, they can talk to themselves. It's OK at Barry's.

In contrast, at Starbucks people are more restrained, more individualistic, more refined.  They wait patiently and politely in line to make a purchase.  No kvetching. Two or three people at most sit at a round table just big enough to hold their tall or grande cafes and small delicacies, but not elbows or newspapers.  People do not speak loudly at Starbucks.  They sit tete-a-tete, with soft piped-in music as a background. Even the children of young mothers sit quietly in their strollers, as if knowing that they shouldn't make a scene and perhaps e forced to drink one of those lattes.

Of course, there are also the loners, the literati, who sit in the upholstered armchairs or sofas deep into The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, or the latest bestseller.  Mum's the word for them, too.  Even their cellphones beep softly, unlike at Barry's where the cellphones somehow want everyone to hear what they are saying.

You see, at Barry's customers are uninhibited, perhaps liberated, certainly not candidates for a self-esteem workshop.  What's on their minds is on their tongues, n o matter how little you care to hear them.  Similarly, the kiddies who come with their mothers think they are in a playground, climbing on the ramp and demanding to play with the countermen as if they were family.  Arthur Rodman, the owner,  is ever present, ready to hear your complaint—with a maybe 50-50 chance that he will agree with you.  In contrast, at Starbucks the chances of talking to or seeing the owner are zilch.

If Starbucks is for those who prefer discussing what's new at the theater, museum, or Symphony Hall, Barry's is for the down-to-earth who prefer discussing the Red Sox, the Patriots, surprise divorces, sudden deaths, or the latest result of someone's medical checkup or research.  (In case you didn't hear,  Viagra works.)

There are also differences between the people who work at each store. At Starbucks the workers are polite and wear neatly pressed green aprons.  Barry's staff is more individualistic and colorful, wearing different T-shirts, baseball caps, and tattoos. They are multidexterous, able to make sandwiches, bus tables, work the cash register, clean the tables, and recite the latest sports scores.  At Barry's, the staff knows you and you them, and it's all year. Not so at Starbucks, where the staff changes with the seasons, particularly the academic year.

In short, Barry's is sui generis in Newton and caters to the free in spirit and omnivorous.  Starbucks is for the more restrained and discriminating, who vant to be alone—or  with vun other person.


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