Geez Louise

     You can see her on the south side of Colfax Avenue across from the Elm Street intersection. Sometimes she's wearing a gas mask, slick raincoat and is holding a cup of coffee with a handwritten label glued over the words "Starbuck's" on her paper cup. On sunny days, she can be seen in a print mini-dress, silky to the touch. She's got a vast wardrobe and a full-on punk hairdresser.The day I first met her, however, she was in pieces just inside the shop--a woman fallen apart: two arms on a table and only half of her standing on her two plaster legs--but still worth the introduction. She's the inimitable Inger Black, mascot for the coffee shop of the same name which sells giant homemade cinnamon rolls, bagels, breakfast burritos, a wide array of teas, coffees, espressos, lattes, pastries and lunch sandwiches and which is owned by some keen business brains with a wild sense of humor (catch the pig-face Mona Lisa in the restroom). 

     You used to catch her in front of the Geez Louise Coffee Shop every day, though since she's been stolen a few times, she is now ball-and-chained. Too bad for the lock and key, because she's not going anywhere anytime soon. It's her home. She loves it there, and so will you. Only now, if you visit the place it will be:

Geez Louise is soon to be re-opened as The Amsterdam.