Tulla's Coffee Grinder

Two rather interesting people have opened a new coffee shop on Mount Auburn Street that smacks not one twit of the desperate degeneracy one sometimes associates with such places on this street.

It is run by Harl Cook, a fortyish man whose sideburns are frankly graying, and his Norwegian wife Tulla, a handsome Nordic blond who leads one to believe that American ways agree with her. Both show good taste and candor, and come to Cambridge after successfully establishing a similar shop in Provincetown.

Harl Cook looks at life cheerfully. He is the son of George Cram "Jig" Cook, founder of the Provincetown Playhouse and inspirer of Eugene O'Neill when the playwright's work was first produced on the Cape in 1916. The elder Cook, writes O'Neill, was "always enthusiastic, vital, impatient with everything that smacked of falsity--he represented the spirit of revolt." Cook fils is also something of a rebel. When Cook pere died, a legacy to Harl provided for a Harvard education. About 1930, Harl came to Harvard--for three days--and then packed off with his inherited loot to Europe, where he bought a motorcycle. He claims some sort of record for his brief University career, and has scarcely ever regetted his decision to forego a longer one.

After a jaunt through Western Europe to Greece, Harl returned to Provincetown, where, through the years, he has gainfully occupied himself as a fisherman and fish-monger, and latterly, as a coffee grinder. One gathers that he was seriously ill for some time, but this didn't prevent him from driving, for variety's sake, a taxi in New York.

Harl believes that he was never interested in the theatre as a career "simply because of it." His mother was the novelist and playwright Susan Glaspell, and Harl himself has written stories for magazines during his own varied career. But he seems quite content with just what he's doing: "Of all the businesses around, I guess this one is the most civilized," he says, looking up from a casual though expert game of chess. Life seems to march on, and Harl enjoys talking to people about both them and him and how we all live.

One day in Provincetown he met Tulla, and this was a significant day in the American history of the coffee bean. Tulla, which means "little girl" in Norwegian, had a seafaring grandfather who once ran short on whale cargo near Java, so started carting coffee back to Norway. Tulla's grandmother soon learned how to make quantities of good coffee, as did her daughter and her daughter's daughter, Tulla. "And I was a little girl, once," she laughs when she explains her name. She seems to have a sort of quiet discipline which will insure the shop's cleanliness, and has herself designed the airy, and as yet unfinished, interior.

Between them, Harl and Tulla drink about 21 cups of coffee a day: Harl, only three ("or I go through the ceiling"); Tulla, 18 ("I just love it!"). They have 20 kinds, ranging from "Angel's Bosom" (Cuban black coffee with lemon peel) to "Cafe del Diablo" (Java Semarang, blended with mint.) Harl says Boston is "just a hick town when it comes to coffee. None of the restaurant suppliers knew what an espresso machine was." Harl and Tulla also serve pastry, cheese, and sandwiches.

As to clientele, Harl expects "all kinds" to patronize the shop. "We certainly don't want pseudo-bohemians here. If they're real bohemians, that's okay. But they shouldn't exclude others. There's no reason for our inheriting the Capriccio crowd," he says.

As to prices, Harl is afraid they'll scare some people away. "But we've put a price card in the window, and if people come in here and make themselves look stupid, it's all right with me." Ukrainian coffee, at 75 cents, is the most expensive, and American coffee, at 30 cents, is the least, man!

As to competition, Harl thinks he's getting along very nicely. Cafe Capriccio, according to reports he's received, never approached making a serious cup of coffee. And Tulla and the lovely plump lady at Patisserie Gabrielle are on the best of terms. "There's really room for four or five coffee shops, if each is distinctive," Harl believes.

Since Tulla's Coffee Grinder opened a few days ago, a good many people have peered curiously at Harl and Tulla through the steamed-up window, and several have come in for a visit. Harl, mean-while, speculates quietly on whether or not his name has been expunged from the College's records.