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The notification in my inbox caught my attention.
“Midtown Trending Posts,” the email subject line from the app Nextdoor read. That in itself is not unusual. Midtown Anchorage trends regularly on Nextdoor, the app that bills itself as “the essential neighborhood network.”
That “trending” tag is doing a lot of heavy lifting, and its meaning can be parsed in a few different ways, especially on Nextdoor, which can come across more as a battle royale among neighbors rather than the friendly “here’s something nifty in the neighborhood to check out” vibe that the platform pitches.
With my interest piqued, I opened the email and gladly read a welcoming engagement: “One place around Anchorage you’d hate to see close. Share the name and let’s give some love to local businesses,” the account Ask Anchorage had posted.
I breathed a “whew” of relief that Midtown wasn’t trending for all the wrong reasons, and with that, my brain immediately kicked into formatting a list of places I’d hate to see close.
For whatever reason, food occupied the initial spots on my mental list. The names pinged one after another as the synapses fired.
Yak and Yeti, the Himalayan cafe on Northern Lights Boulevard, popped up first, with its curries, rice bowls and nifty zipline ordering system zooming your order from the front of the house to the kitchen.
That was followed immediately by Tommy’s Burger Stop in Spenard (the Stella Bleu Burger and an order of onion rings is my go-to comfort food meal), then Pho Lena, also in Spenard, and its Pho Tum Yum, a bowl of pho so immense — and so good — you can almost swim in it.
Next, the brain went sweet on me: Crumbl, the gourmet cookie shop with its rotating menu of sugar-laden, frosting-heavy cookies.
I have no doubt someone will say, “But Gary, Crumbl isn’t local. It’s a chain.” Ah, but it’s a franchise, so I’m giving it a pass and allowing it. Plus, as a few people in the newsroom can attest, I am a Crumbl junkie, and the amount of crumbs I have on my Crumbl app is obscene (that’s Crumbl’s cheeky point-reward system for the woefully uninitiated).
Then, weirdly, the ol’ noggin pulled up … Goodwill. Yes, Goodwill, specifically the location at 8931 Old Seward Highway (located conveniently across the street from a Crumbl, as it were). Sure, it’s a chain, but it’s also a bargain hunter’s treasure trove, and you can score some great finds with minimal effort.
I could go on and on — Sleeping Lady Coffee Company in Midtown? Check. The Broken Blender downtown? Check. Play It Again Sports in Spenard? Check. — but the list would become endless.
Plus, this isn’t just about me. It leads me to wonder about you. What is the place you would hate to see close? Be it food, drink, shopping, entertainment or a gazillion other categories, what’s the place you’d miss the most if it closed? I know you have one, and probably more than one, so hit me with your faves at letters@adn.com or use the web form. And remember, some of your responses could be formatted into letters to the editor, so keep that in mind as you write.
Who knows, maybe you’ll help me find a new spot or two to check out around Anchorage, and at the least, you'll get to share a little local business support and love.
— Gary Black, opinion editor
Anchorage Daily News
gblack@adn.com |
