Then Colonia Roma looms, and an edgier, more urban cafe culture emerges.
The urban cafe is to Bishara what the village hills are to Massalha: a place to smoke, to think, to reinvigorate himself.
Cafes span the spectrum from the groovy yellow and purple Urban Cafe serving tempura fish and chips to the Blue Gum Center, a diner with linoleum floors and Formica tables.
Everywhere one turns, on commuter trains and urban cafes, people are tapping away at their iPhone screens in a relatively rare Japanese embrace of technology that isn't homegrown.
URBAN WORLD CAFE One More Once, rock.
URBAN WORLD CAFE Ball in the House, pop a cappella.
The decor is urban beach cafe (clean blues, tongue and groove, aluminium tables), the atmosphere is seaside coffee bar, and the food is served from breakfast to lunchtime.
Across South Broad Street, the Urban Word Cafe, which opened in the bleak months before the arena was finished, is jammed on weekend nights.
Urban Oasis Cafe, (516) 305-7040, can be found at the farmers' market in Garden City on Tuesdays from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. and at the market in Christopher Morley Park in Roslyn-North Hills on Wednesdays from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m.
On a recent morning at the Christopher Morley Park farmers' market in Roslyn-North Hills, Dominic Chimienti, 36, of New Hyde Park, and his 4-year-old son, Jake, stood in front of the bright green Urban Oasis Cafe truck and considered the blackboard menu of organic juices and smoothies.
We push on past the pier, and the Harvester, stopping for hot drinks and cake at the Urban Reef cafe-restaurant, which also makes me think of Bondi; it's all driftwood, drawers on walls, bright chairs and market stalls, displaying the local produce that they want you to see them cooking in the open kitchen.
