Yesterday it rained all day. I did attempt a hike, but the less said about Homer and it's trails the better. In the afternoon we wandered around. We didn't go to the Mall, because there isn't one. In fact, there's a noticeable lack of Big Business, USA.
Homer has a McDonald's and a Subway. There's no Wallmart, Starbucks, Pizza Hut or other big name stores. There also seems to be a notable lack of 'in your face' advertising. Most of the signs are hand painted and if you don't have your glasses on forget it. Obviously, there's good and bad to this low key way of doing things.
Fran and I have been hitting the various small coffee shops. I've had great coffee, warm coffee and one place where the coffee ran out half way through my mug. I was also pleased to get my coffee in a locally made compostable cup, although would have preferred my trusty travel mug. We also got coffee from Starbucks in Anchorage. The service and friendliness of the independent coffee shops was always better than Starbucks, even if the coffee was not.
Yesterday, as it was raining, we decided to check out Homer's microbrewery. It was hard to find and spot even once we were there. Inside, the brewery bit was right next to the merchandising and you could smell the hops and fermenting barley. The only thing we couldn't see was beer for sale. I enquired. They did indeed have beer, but they only sold it in a returnable bottle, returnable growler or non-returnable plastic pop bottle. Everything was on tap. They also showed us a list of the restaurants that had their brew on tap. I noted a pizza place that I had read a very positive review about. We made a selection, bought some coasters and moved on.
We also visited an outward bounds store that only sold gear made in Alaska and a good deal of it was made on the premises. Fleece socks, fleece sweaters, kit bags and a range of other gear. To be honest, the quality looked questionable. Fran bought an animal spotting check list and on we went.
We also stopped at a couple of other stores where we found a sign in the window that simply said, "closed until Monday".
In the evening, I wanted to try out the pizza place - Fin Pizza. We could not find any ads telling us where it was located. There's no phone book. We went on-line and found a review of the place and it mentioned that it was on the Spit. Off we went, up and down the Spit. With the hunger clouds gathering, I was ready to give up on our search for Fin Pizza. However, we parked the car and walked along the spit until I saw the postage stamp sized painted wooden sign. Over we went. It was a small place that could only accommodate about 20 people, but it was packed. There were only 3 staff including the main pizza dough kneader and cook, and two others who did everything else. It didn't help them that the kitchen was downstairs and the restaurant upstairs, but they had a system which they made work.
The pizza was excellent. I'm not ashamed to say that we polished off a 16 inch 3 cheese, mushroom and onion between us. We also enjoyed a Homer Porter beer and great service, the view of the Bay was great too. There's just something different about the service at a place where the people serving you own and operate the business.
It's nice not to be bombarded with inane ads telling you that you need products X Y and Z. Although, it would be nice to have a bit more information on services. It's as though the owners are content with the size of business they have, it provides enough income for what they want and so why bother expanding and trying to do more than that. We can enjoy it for another day.
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