Last Friday, my friend Claire and I met for lunch at Mia Lina’s, a small pizza place in a converted old house in town. Although Mia Lina’s is primarily a takeout restaurant, there are a few tables inside as well as one lone picnic table, right outside the door. Claire got there first and grabbed the picnic table, and as soon as I arrived, we ordered our favorite dish from Mia Lina’s—a teriyaki chicken salad, which comes with marinated chicken (not breaded) on romaine lettuce along with cheese, peppers, tomatoes, olives, and onions.  

All in all, the food at Mia Lina’s is pretty good. While the pizza is not cooked in a brick oven, the dough is fresh and the sauce is zesty. Clif and I mostly make our own pizzas, but whenever we order out, we do so from Mia Lina’s. 

Because the day was so fine and sunny, Claire and I rode our bikes to Mia Lina’s. As we sat outside, ate our salads, and chatted, we both agreed we felt very European. The problem was, of course, that there was a single table outside, and Claire and I were the only ones having this European moment, which included riding our bikes, eating outside, and saying hi to the various customers as they came and went. 

Winthrop does not have what you might call a café culture, where people come to sit outside in fine weather, have a drink—either alcoholic or not—linger for a bit, meet with friends, and generally relax. When she was in college, my eldest daughter, Dee, spent a month in Tours, France, and one of the things she loved best was the café culture (along with the chocolate croissant). Each night, after a day of studying French, she and her friends would go to a café and while away the evening, talking and arguing. They wouldn’t spend much money. In fact, they weren’t expected to spend much money. After they ordered one drink, they were pretty much left alone by the servers, who didn’t come again unless they were beckoned. 

We do have a couple of small restaurants in town—Sully’s and Pepper’s—but somehow they don’t really fit the bill when it comes to café culture, which is as much about being social as it is about eating. There was a small sandwich shop in the center of town, where locals used to hang out, where the food was even more basic than it is at Mia Lina’s, but it has been closed for a number of years. 

We are getting a new place—Tubby’s—which I wrote about in a previous post—Tubby’s is Coming to Town. Everyone I’ve spoken to has high hopes for Tubby’s, that the food will be really good and that it will provide a much-needed place for people to gather. As far as I can tell, there won’t be outside seating, but even a comfortable indoor spot would be better than what we have now. 

I think what the people I’ve talked to realize is that a town without a central gathering place isn’t much of a town. It’s just place where people drive through on their way to someplace else—to home or to work. While home is our refuge, and work is necessary, we also need gathering places in our communities, places where we can come together with folks we might not normally see otherwise. Maybe all we do is nod and say hi and comment about the weather. Maybe we meet friendly acquaintances and have more of a conversation, but whatever we do, we form connections with the people who live nearby, and, lately, with our rushed, isolated American lives, this has become harder and harder. 

So here’s hoping that Tubby’s will indeed be an asset to the community, a place where we can come together and be social. Claire and I will be there when it opens, and so will my husband, Clif. It will be interesting to see how many other people become regulars, but it’s my guess that Tubby’s will be a great success. The quality of food at the Wayne’s Tubby’s is very good, and the renovations of the new Tubby’s are a marvel to watch. Slowly, an extremely drab building in our downtown is being converted to a place that is snappy and attractive. 

I’ll certainly be keeping an eye on Tubby’s, and I’ll be writing about it in future posts.