IKEA’s cafeteria is my consumerist equivalent of a community center
Surviving the summer in Las Vegas is a challenge. We set the thermostat at 71 degrees. The kids know not to move it. My friends with pools become scarce on days when the valley feels like Satan’s solarium. The rest of us have few places where we can linger unbothered without buying something. There are libraries and community centers, but sometimes you want to sit someplace and watch the traffic on the beltway.
IKEA is that place.
I wouldn’t have ever been to an IKEA if not for the breakfast. The OC Weekly declared it a breakfast spot back in the early aughts. I was new to the West Coast farm-to-table subculture that required avocados on everything. IKEA made learning the ropes simple. Eventually, I’d move away and forget the home furnishings superstore. But I never forgot the joys of lounging in a birch Rönninge chair for hours.
In graduate school during the pandemic, I’d meet fellow writers at outdoor cafes in spring and fall. I didn’t invite people to my house. Who wants the awkward conversation about where people stand on COVID transmission? If the 2016 election taught me anything, it’s that ignorance of your friends’ politics is bliss.
We needed a spacious place to “work on our craft.” It had to be in a part of town broke writers could afford, where masking was less about politics and more about disinterest in applying makeup. I suggested IKEA’s cafeteria, a suggestion that had less to do with the floor-to-ceiling windows allowing natural light to stream through, or the splendor of Red Rock as a backdrop, than with the true gem of IKEA: its design.
For starters, the parking lot has numerous entry points. Does parking in the ample space between two lines make you nervous? Well, IKEA has 2,300 spots. Take two if you need to. From the outside, the second-floor cafeteria beckons. Everyone is on display, minding their suburban business. Kids press themselves up against the window. Pensioners read aloud to no one. Budding families discuss décor they saw in one of the carefully curated rooms. People funnel through the entrance and ascend the escalator like a birth canal. I’m ecstatic when I enter the maze, a feeling that transmogrifies into mania as I move farther in.
The chain’s global chief designer says the stores are built with one intention. You’re meant to feel as if you’re traveling through a three-dimensional catalog. The orderly and furnished rooms are supposed to bring you to some sanguine domestic disposition. The imagery is not lost on our writing group — a bunch of emerging writers trying to use words to be better, more mindful humans.
IKEA is like the malls of my youth. The mall was the place deemed safe for me to be without an adult. Malls, for many Americans, offered the first taste of independence. Beyond the usual fare of stores and play areas, you could actually see concerts for free while hanging out with friends. Malls were also where social structure met consumerism. Even as a teenager, I inferred that we couldn’t form relationships unless money was involved. I am not against that; I just wish there were more air-conditioned places for the community to socialize without having to spend money.
I’ve been questioning the paradox of nurturing community in a place of rampant consumerism since then. As my de facto community center, IKEA is the latest example of this paradox. Eat enough of those meatballs, and you start to question a lot of things; for instance, the dysfunction of late-stage capitalism. Why do communities rely on corporate behemoths to offer opportunities for socializing and refuge from the sun? In Las Vegas, traditionally, it’s been the role of the casino. You could eat at the buffet, leave the kids in the play area or arcade, catch a movie, and go home. That might be going to the wayside, too, now that Circa Resort & Casino has found success with an adults-only concept, and Red Rock Casino Resort & Spa is making part of the pool area inaccessible to children.
But IKEA remains. Like Harry Potter’s Room of Requirement at Hogwarts, it’s there for whoever needs it. After a long rest, I relish the dopamine reward of exiting IKEA’s maze. It’s much like the feeling I get when I finish a story: only happiness … and relief. Φ