"Can you hold these until the flower shop opens up?" the deliveryman asked.
A fake Shahin shop opened up across the Nile last year, and he has heard of others, too.
The shop opens up into the office, which is also Mr. Ross's showplace, a museum of taxidermy and freeze-dried pets that leaves visitors agape.
A year or so after I started reading comics on my iPad, a new comic shop opened up not far from where my old local had closed down a decade ago.
"I believe it is important we take action, during tough times, to encourage people to set up shop, open up premises and start new businesses in our unused buildings.
As the entire crowd turns toward the tour bus doors out front, the back door of the coffee shop opens up and Buddy Valastro, the famed Cake Boss, leads Christie into the room.
It's a lot more attractive nowadays, with loads of new bars and shops opening up every year.
"More people are buying classic American cars now because they can fix them more easily, and we're now seeing dedicated shops opening up here," said Mr. Pryor, who recently traded in his 1959 Vauxhall Victor for a '56 Chevy.
But it's not all bad: with each month the internet is becoming an ever more useful treasure trove for rediscovering old music, as new archives spring up online allowing music-lovers to discover rarities that you'd struggle to find in record shops, opening up new channels of exploration.
The funding could mean more shops opening up in other cities.
One trend favoring Coffee Bean and other challengers: the phenomenon of "coffee rows" or what's known in the industry as "clustering"–coffee shops opening up across the street or near a rival, with neither losing much business.
