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I wish I could remember. Or even find some pictures of the place online.
While the web did (just barely) exist at the time, sites like Instabook did not. Nor was everyone carrying around a high-resolution digital camera / supercomputer in their pocket. I feel a certain sense of loss in that.
We were the generation which had an analog youth and a digital adulthood. And while it was cool to have front row seats to a world-changing paradigm shift in information technology, the downside of that is that we are also the last generation who have very little record of the small, incidental details of our early life. Very few photographs overall, and practically none of trivial and unimportant things, such as what we had for lunch on some random Thursday.
Turns out that Falafel King is still in business. Looks like they relocated to a different strip mall, albeit much further from campus. I can't imagine that they get much foot traffic there.
But pretty much zero sign that Chinee Takee Outee ever existed, save for one small blurb (with no photo) that I found in a 1995 issue of The Independent Florida Alligator.
WAIT! I FOUND A VIDEO!
The strip-mall of interest starts at about :13 in.
Aaaaaah, the Purple Porpoise. Wasn't a gay bar, despite the name. They had a little comedy club in the back called The Blow Hole. Which also wasn't a sex thing in any way.
Good memories.
Holy hell. I grew up in Melrose and spent a bunch of time in Gainesville while my Mom was going to school there. She had a class with Emmit Smith. Too cool. I got snuck into the Purple Purpoise one time as a kid. I think that was the place that used to do free drinks until someone peed and patrons would pee in the plants to hide their urination and keep the free drinks coming LOL
Holy hell. I grew up in Melrose and spent a bunch of time in Gainesville while my Mom was going to school there. She had a class with Emmit Smith. Too cool. I got snuck into the Purple Purpoise one time as a kid. I think that was the place that used to do free drinks until someone peed and patrons would pee in the plants to hide their urination and keep the free drinks coming LOL
Caribbean Spice. Another one I miss, which is now gone.
This was a weird place. That photo above, that's the whole thing. The menu consisted of one item: the special.
The special was a spicy beef patty, a piece of cocoa bread, and a slice of carrot cake. In a brown paper bag. $2.50. Then you grab a can of soda out of a refrigerator (a regular, residential-style fridge) which is out of frame to the left. And then you leave.
I have utterly no idea how they stayed in business, but the place was popular. A few blocks east of campus, but worth the walk.
Aaaaaah, the Purple Porpoise. Wasn't a gay bar, despite the name. They had a little comedy club in the back called The Blow Hole. Which also wasn't a sex thing in any way.
I don't even quite recall the rabbit-hole path which landed me on this person's profile. It was a friend of a friend of a friend thing. Anyway, you can look up the name on FB, I haven't edited anything here.
This young lady is not unattractive by contemporary standards. The pin on her shirt says "He / Him / His", which is congruent with the pronouns she uses. (Some of her other posts are about beginning hormone replacement therapy in order to become more masculine.)
And this one specific post is, I think, really emblematic of the victimhood-as-status culture.
Just read the text. And think about it. This person has so fully embraced the victim mentality that, in their mind, being called "cute" was enough to cause PTSD, and is also evidence of rape culture.
It's a bizarro-world version of virtue signaling. Victim signaling, perhaps? "Look at how much of a victim I perceive myself to be. I deserve your adoration and sympathy."
We're at a point where this is becoming not merely the new normal, but the new ideal.
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