I really want there to be three competing coffee shops/cafes in the same district that are determined to outdo each other with increasingly elaborate and strange methods.
They're determined to be the first to sponsor and slap their names on anything that they can so their rivals can't. It serves a special purpose of getting their names out there collectively, so it's encouraged by the owners. Atlantis is the newest of these, so while Mantis and Phoenix House may have a semi-friendly rivalry, they're both willing to band together against Atlantis to keep it from siphoning business from them.
Phoenix House and Mantis are in the same block, while Atlantis is a little ways away.
Mantis is a house lit by strings of lights and antique lamps on the inside, but outside has an elaborate sculpture garden with a canopy strung with hanging lights, and lights coiled inside old glass insulators or jars. There's a wind-powered music machine (think a musicbox) outside, but since there's rarely enough wind to turn it (and takes some effort to crank it manually), it's usually a fantastically decorative interesting 'thing' that the regulars will all gleefully describe in detail. It doesn't have any one central place to order, but instead has multiple food trucks and stand each offering wildly different things; they're always looking to entice more people to come add variety. Offers various cards and games for people to play while they're there; the tables themselves are patterned to be game boards.
Phoenix House specializes in trash art - while Mantis has glass lights, it goes farther. Windchimes made of discarded glass and metal items, broken lawn decorations repurposed into completely different kinds of lawn decorations. The entire building is open to be drawn on and decorated; the outside is a sprawl of overlapping murals and markers are provided on request to draw on the tables and walls. The one rule is that nothing offensive is permitted, and if it's discovered the entire place will be repainted and everyone will have to start over. There's a giant statue of a horned beast generously described as 'a deer' here soldered together out of discarded metal. The seats are all interesting; some are old carousel horses, some are oversized vertebrae, some are wicker, one is a hand, one is a swing. Everything except the coffee that's on the menu here is fusion food - unusual or completely unique combinations of unrelated foods. Most are even edible.
Atlantis is the newest of these, and as such is the one that the first two dislike the most for daring to be yet another 'cool hangout place'. It has thick, frosted glass walls lit in various colors with pumps in the corners and water running down the sides to spill into a long koi pond. Against this ongoing waterfall are various sculptures and channels to give the illusion of an underwater city skyline. It used to have a glass ceiling, too, but for unspecified reasons (with many rumors about what happened) it now only features a mesh over the top and offers large hand painted umbrellas over each table. Primarily offers seafood and has a wide array of teas, offers boba as an option. Also features an array of unusual plants placed in strategic locations around the outside. There's no indoors, but there's a small building that serves as a kitchen and workspace for employees in the corner. Won't acknowledge there's a rivalry at all, but sometimes buys things that one of the other two places put a bid on.
Competing hipster coffee houses/cafes
They're determined to be the first to sponsor and slap their names on anything that they can so their rivals can't. It serves a special purpose of getting their names out there collectively, so it's encouraged by the owners. Atlantis is the newest of these, so while Mantis and Phoenix House may have a semi-friendly rivalry, they're both willing to band together against Atlantis to keep it from siphoning business from them.
Phoenix House and Mantis are in the same block, while Atlantis is a little ways away.
Mantis is a house lit by strings of lights and antique lamps on the inside, but outside has an elaborate sculpture garden with a canopy strung with hanging lights, and lights coiled inside old glass insulators or jars. There's a wind-powered music machine (think a musicbox) outside, but since there's rarely enough wind to turn it (and takes some effort to crank it manually), it's usually a fantastically decorative interesting 'thing' that the regulars will all gleefully describe in detail. It doesn't have any one central place to order, but instead has multiple food trucks and stand each offering wildly different things; they're always looking to entice more people to come add variety. Offers various cards and games for people to play while they're there; the tables themselves are patterned to be game boards.
Phoenix House specializes in trash art - while Mantis has glass lights, it goes farther. Windchimes made of discarded glass and metal items, broken lawn decorations repurposed into completely different kinds of lawn decorations. The entire building is open to be drawn on and decorated; the outside is a sprawl of overlapping murals and markers are provided on request to draw on the tables and walls. The one rule is that nothing offensive is permitted, and if it's discovered the entire place will be repainted and everyone will have to start over. There's a giant statue of a horned beast generously described as 'a deer' here soldered together out of discarded metal. The seats are all interesting; some are old carousel horses, some are oversized vertebrae, some are wicker, one is a hand, one is a swing. Everything except the coffee that's on the menu here is fusion food - unusual or completely unique combinations of unrelated foods. Most are even edible.
Atlantis is the newest of these, and as such is the one that the first two dislike the most for daring to be yet another 'cool hangout place'. It has thick, frosted glass walls lit in various colors with pumps in the corners and water running down the sides to spill into a long koi pond. Against this ongoing waterfall are various sculptures and channels to give the illusion of an underwater city skyline. It used to have a glass ceiling, too, but for unspecified reasons (with many rumors about what happened) it now only features a mesh over the top and offers large hand painted umbrellas over each table. Primarily offers seafood and has a wide array of teas, offers boba as an option. Also features an array of unusual plants placed in strategic locations around the outside. There's no indoors, but there's a small building that serves as a kitchen and workspace for employees in the corner. Won't acknowledge there's a rivalry at all, but sometimes buys things that one of the other two places put a bid on.