On my constant hunt for the perfect coffee shop, I stop at The Java Tree. “Where do you roast?” I ask the women behind the counter, who did not want her name in print. “Right here,” she says, pointing to a little roaster behind me that I hadn’t noticed when I came in. It turns out, it’s she who roasts green coffee from Ethiopia every other day.
I order a coffee and a pasti, which she describes to me as similar to a donut but not as sweet. “This is a very traditional thing. We all grew up eating that,” she says, setting the pastry, coffee in a little glass cup, and a box of sugar down at my table. The coffee is darkly roasted and pulled slowly through an espresso machine, and the pasti, with nigella seeds delicately distributed, is dense and satisfying. Dark wood furniture, a large wall of windows, quiet jazz, and outdoor seating make the café feel warm in a way that contrasts with the often-sterile aesthetic of Vegas’ coffee shops.
As I sit, families come in and out with large hauls of plushies from The Claw next door. “This one’s my favorite. No one can touch it ever in the world,” a kid says, squeezing a little blue animal I don’t recognize. When The Java Tree closes, I look in at The Claw where, in the late afternoon rush, every machine lining the small arcade’s wall has a long line.
Instead of joining them, I go to Max Pawn Luxury, overstaffed and heavily guarded, and walk along the glass wall of Birkin bags in a rainbow of expense, prices ranging from $12,000 to $33,000. The rest of the store is shoes and diamonds. When a third person approaches to ask if I need assistance, I decide it’s time to leave; my outfit made up entirely of hand-me-downs must be a beacon of my unbelonging.
On the practical side of things, this strip mall has two massage places, a Bank of America drive-through ATM, and the elusive USPS post box. There’s also Jinya Ramen Bar, a solid dinner spot that often gets packed on weekends, and an Asian grocer with boxes of bitter melon, kohlrabi, and greens stacked on the floor, which I note to come back for next time I’m in need.
Usually, I come to this strip mall for Lucy Ethiopian Restaurant, a favorite Vegas restaurant of mine, but after speaking to the roaster at The Java Tree I decide to meet my friend at Little Ethiopia Restaurant & Market, which is owned by the same family, instead. Inside, groups sit at round tables drinking coffee, surrounded by décor that’s as welcoming as in the café. We order mango juice, a vegetarian platter, lamb tibs, and foul — far too much food for two people. It’s a little less flavorful than the food at Lucy, but the injera is fresh and succulent, so we stay for a while making dents we can in the feast.
Then, we stop by Red Dragon Casino to try our hands at Pachinko, a game that in Japan would be used for gambling, but here is just for fun, the bored woman behind the counter tells us. We are the only ones inside. She lets us play for free because, she says, it’s impossible to figure out the game if you don’t speak Japanese. She is kind of right, but it’s fun to press the big plastic buttons on the machines and watch the little metal balls sift through the pinball-like game-scape, wrapping around each digital screen. The balls exit the machine, run through tubing beneath our legs, and clink into a bucket in the far corner of the little room. It feels like winning.
We end our night at Pink Cactus Tea, drinking fruit teas in beautiful color spectrums, floral and thick with tropical fruit, and I lose a game of checkers that dissolves into a chase of kings until we forget whose turn it is. In the pink neon glow, teenagers kill time and families play games, and it feels close to the sidewalk people-watching I always crave in Vegas, which can sometimes — if the night is right — be found on the glorious streets of a strip mall.