In Seattle, Man No Longer Push Cart

The odds of seeing a Pakistani rock star pushing a coffee cart through the streets of Seattle before dawn have gotten increasingly slim.

Filmed on a shoestring budget, the 2006 Sundance entry Man Push Cart told the story of a former Pakistani pop star who, after his wife dies, immigrates to New York City, where he wallows in anonymity. He lives in a one-room apartment, and scrapes by selling coffee and baked goods from a push cart in Mahattan, which he fetches and tows on foot long before the sun comes up. Then things really get depressing; Man Push Cart is a brilliantly executed slice of neo-realism, but it renders the American Dream a nightmare you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy.

So is it really such a bad thing that the coffee cart is an endangered species in Seattle?

On the one hand, yes. Seattle is the coffee capital of America. Hence, coffee should spew forth from every conceivable purchase point; if fire hydrants could be rigged to serve as all-you-can-drink taps for the buzz-inducing brown (withparking meters doubling as automated cash registers), then so they should be. Any abatement of java enterprise is to tarnish the City's Emerald.

On the other hand, it's not like supply is suffering as a result of the carts' demise. Forget Starbucks and Tully's--there are now no less than five Cherry Streets in Downtown Seattle. I remember when there was but one (on Cherry Street, if you can believe it), and it wasn't all that long ago.

So, who needs a cart when local roasters are rolling in enough beans to rent prime indoor real estate?