About Town: Put the Coffee On Bergen County, Fort Lee's in the House

As a teenager, Fort Lee was the town where all the other kids from Bergen County wanted to hang out. Remember the adolescent hordes at Bagel Nosh? Hiram’s? Callahans? Dairy Queen? And the list goes on. My friend from Paramus Catholic, Maura, used to joke that other towns exported their teenagers to Fort Lee so that their towns would remain quiet and undisturbed. 

Last week I accompanied a girlfriend to retrieve her teenage daughter from her classmate’s house in Glen Rock. And here’s where my beef with northern Bergen County begins. Being that it was a beautiful evening, and Glen Rock is an undeniably beautiful, tree-lined town with lemonade porches and painted lady Victorians, we planned in advance to have a cup of coffee at the local Starbucks since it has a lovely outdoor garden area. 

It seemed preternaturally dark when we arrived in Glen Rock at 9:55 p.m. and we should have known that we weren’t in Kansas (read: Fort Lee) anymore when a skateboarder nearly performed a perfect kick-flip over my friend’s mini-van in order to avoid colliding into us as we turned the corner of Maple Avenue to Rock Road. Hordes of kids using the town’s main artery as a skateboard park?  Incredible!

The entire town was lit as brightly as a dim nightlight. The few stores that had lights on (did I say few?) were cashing out and counting their money in full view of the front window. Really?

Thankfully there were still people sipping lattes in the garden area of Starbucks. However, when we tried to enter the store, the door was locked and the manager was counting cash right in front of the window.

“Come back tomorrow,” he enthusiastically mouthed as he separated the bills into neat denominational piles. 

We looked around us, our eyes trying to adjust to the darkness. What store lights that had been on began to methodically switch off in a very “Goodnight John Boy” type of way. Unless there’s some secret garden of 24-hour convenience stores in this neck of the woods, where does northern Bergen County get milk in the middle of the night? Cows?

We decided to drive to Ridgewood. Surely, coffee could be had there! Alas, no. All was closed. So back to Glen Rock to pick up her daughter. Feeling the need to feed the caffeine monster, we stopped at almost every town on the way home looking for coffee. Caffe Nada. 

Rounding the curve of Route 4 back into town, we found strange comfort in all the bright lights and big city noises of Fort Lee.

Cars careened down Main Street, the and the s were hopping busy, all three 7-11’s had multiple pots of coffee brewing in all flavors, and and had refrigerator cases filled with milk should you run out while pouring a midnight bowl of Frosted Flakes. After all, what’s better than a midnight bowl of cereal while watching T.V. Land or the new Antenna channel?  

Anyway, we were almost paralyzed by the amount of choices Fort Lee offered at almost midnight. We decided on on Bergen Boulevard. After all, why not fuel the caffeine beast with sugar? 

Dunkin’ Donuts was so crowded that we had to wait until a parking spot became available. When we finally walked through the door the place was as festive and alive as Mardi Gras. 

People of all ages and nationalities were gathered around tables, talking loudly, laughing, animated in conversation--strung out on caffeine. Finally, we were home. We had re-joined the tribe. 

Fort Lee may not be the most picturesque town in Bergen County; its Main Street may not be lined with rows of lemonade porches or painted ladies (at least not the ones that come with two-car garages), but we discovered two important things on that summer night: we in Fort Lee will never go coffee-less and we’ll always have milk for our cereal.

Fort Lee really is the little city that never sleeps. Which, to quote Martha Stewart, is a good thing, because with our daily (and nightly) caffeine intake, neither do we.