Boots for Breakfast

Take a close look at the awning on this coffee shop on Morris Park Boulevard in the Bronx. "Sandwiches. Donuts. Newspaper. Cigarettes. Workboots."

Workboots?

Yes, workboots. Enter the narrow shop and the boots line the left hand wall, inhabiting rows of cubbyholes the reach up to the ceiling. The tiny coffee shop counter is in the back, and seems like an afterthought.

"I've never seen a coffee shop that sold workboots," I told the woman at the counter, using a line she probably here's everyday. "Works for me," she said. "Been here 28 years." All those years, she's sold boots, she said. Who buys them? "Depends on the clientele." I'll bet.