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Topless Coffee Shop Fired Up to Keep Going

June 10, 2009 - Dear Mr. Hotstuff,

I'd call you by name if I could, but you're still out there watching the news like a hawk, wondering whether investigators are hot on your trail for last week's torching of the Grand View Topless Coffee Shop in Vassalboro.

While you sweat, I thought I'd offer a few observations about what you did – and what you didn't do.

But first, let me state the obvious: You're an idiot – and a lucky one at that.

Maybe you knew that owner Donald Crabtree, his twin daughters, their boyfriends and two infants were all asleep inside when you set the place ablaze just after midnight on Wednesday. Or maybe you were too hellbent on burning down the coffee shop to even wonder whether you were putting any lives in danger.

Either way, you're out of your mind. Had it not been for the ambulance crew that awoke Crabtree and his family as the flames spread, you could be looking at multiple murder charges right now.

But here's the part that's sure to make you see red.

You thought when you lit that match that you were putting Crabtree and his staff of topless waitresses and waiters out of business once and for all, right? Figured they'd leave town with their scorched tails between their legs, never to be seen in these parts again?

Well, Hotstuff, you figured wrong.

Monday morning, less than a week after you redefined the word "coward," Crabtree was back in business – and promising he'd rebuild.

"We're going to put some smiles back on people's faces," Crabtree told me, repeating his reason for opening a bare-breasted coffee shop in the first place. "To all the people around Maine who are having a hard time and losing everything – don't give up. It ain't the end of the world. We're here in a tent, but we'll be back."

Of course, it won't be easy.

As you undoubtedly know by now, Crabtree didn't have insurance to cover his $300,000 in losses – including not only his coffee shop and attached home, but also his lobster gear and the tools he's used for 15 years as a carpenter. And after he went out over the weekend and spent $269 on the canopy and $599 on a generator to power his boom box and new coffee makers, he's now officially broke.

Check that. I forgot to mention the clear-plastic gerbil cage salvaged from the fire (no, it wasn't occupied) that now sits next to the coffee machines under the canopy. It's been transformed into a donation box and – this is really going to fry you – it was half full with cash less than three hours after the not-so-grand reopening Monday morning.

I can hear you muttering, "Big deal, a few singles and change. ..." But once again, Hotstuff, you're off the mark.

I saw fives, tens, twenties and even a couple of fifties in there among all the cash. (Then there's the $100 bill a guy left on the seat of Crabtree's truck over the weekend, along with a note that read, "Hope this helps.")

But it's not just the money, Hotstuff. It's what the people who kept turning in off Route 3 were saying that proves just how badly you blew it.

Laura Savage of South China had never set foot inside the coffee shop, yet here she stood with her baby daughter on her hip, stuffing a bill through the slot because (unlike you) she knows the difference between right and wrong.

"If people wanted to picket the place or if they wanted to write nasty letters to the editor, that's their right to express themselves," Savage said. "But this surely isn't."

Steve Cropper, another newcomer, didn't feel strongly one way or another back when people first started debating whether or not Vassalboro is the appropriate setting for a topless anything.

"But now I'm supporting it," Cropper said. "This just isn't the way we do things around here. If this happened, what might be next?"

Then there's Kevin Hurd, who owns the Hurd & Son Garage in Liberty. His boy just turned 18 a couple of weeks ago, and Hurd was planning to bring him down to the coffee shop to, well, celebrate.

"Then this happened," said Hurd, who was thinking half-seriously about offering "topless oil changes" before his wife put the kibosh on the idea. "If (Crabtree) wants to do it and he can make a go of it, why not?"

I could go on, Hotstuff, but you get the idea.

While a few might secretly applaud your vigilantism, many more condemn it. As they sipped their coffee and chatted Monday, they talked about law and order and the freedom to decide for themselves whether topless waitresses are, shall we say, their cup of tea.

Speaking of the waitresses, they haven't gone anywhere, either.

Dressed in their best bikinis, Amy Greenleaf and Krista MacIntyre stood at the end of the driveway Monday, welcoming those who turned in and waving to others who honked in support as they drove by.

You probably didn't know that Greenleaf just finished her sophomore year at the University of Maine, where she's double majoring in psychology and sociology. Or that the money she made at the coffee shop enabled her to pay for school – at least so far.

"I tell everybody that this is going to be my case study for my thesis," Greenleaf said over the air horn of a passing tractor-trailer.

Hear that, Hotstuff? A college thesis written by a topless waitress about a business that, even as you read this, is slowly rising from the ashes.

That must really burn you up.

BILL NEMITZ, Portland Press Herald, June 9, 2009


Lakes:
Regions: Belgrade, Mid Coast


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