Inside the Globe on its final night, people packed onto couches and crowded around tables. Smokers clustered in front. Live music from Can't Do It, Rebekah Pulley and Rob Pastore, and Have Gun Will Travel.
Local musician Ronny Elliott came down to say goodbye. I asked him, and others, how they would describe the Globe in one word (or two).
"The Globe to me is community, a (hippie) community," Elliott said. "It is sad but everything comes to an end sometime and I think its overall effect on St. Pete is evident all around."
Josh Sullivan and his band Can't Do It were on "stage" at the Globe playing ska and punk to a standing room only crowd. Sullivan was shirtless, and covered in sweat. Still he danced, jumped and screamed into the microphone — bidding a fond farewell on the Globe's last night.
Sullivan and his band hadn't played in three years, until Wednesday. They were a "Globe band," having played only 10 shows in the last eight years, all of them at the Globe.
"This is a song we wrote called 'St. Pete Won't Be the Same' and after tonight, it won't be the same because the Globe won't be here."
Sullivan moved to St. Petersburg in 2000.
"Found this place two weeks after I moved down here. I was living in a motel on 34th Street," Sullivan shouted to the crowd. "At the Globe, I found my home away from home."
He's a local comic book artist and former employee of the Globe, and he's sad to see the Globe close, having shared so many moments inside its doors.
"It's good for JoEllen," Sullivan said. "But I started thinking of all the people who I'd fallen in love with here, all the people I've met here and became friends with from here."
For Sullivan, the Globe can be summed up as "family."
Local artist Dan Lasata moved to St. Petersburg from New Hampshire, and within the first few months of living here he came across the Globe. He loves JoEllen's chocolate cake; actually anything with chocolate is good.
Lasata's word for the Globe? "An escape."
Owner JoEllen Schilke waltzed through the crowd in her black leather cowgirl boots.
People dove into Supa-fudgey brownies and reminisced. Mark and Kim Barnes came from Little Rock, Arkansas, to see family and come to the Globe one last time.
"I don't drink coffee actually," Mark said. "I drink tea but I came here for the companionship."
Mark Barnes was studying at USF St. Petersburg when he started coming to the Globe.
"He brought me here for the first time," Kim said. "We met Mark's family here for the first time after we had started dating and played board games all night."
By 11 p.m., longtime employee and friend of the Globe John Naughton informed me there was no more beer, only sangria, and that was fine by me. People looked through the tables, chairs and decor deciding where to stake our claims for Monday's garage sale, everyone hoping to keep their piece of the Globe.
For some it was the coffee. Others it was the tea, the brownies or pie. Maybe it was excellent board game selection, or a perfect meeting place to talk about poetry, saving the Earth, electing a candidate or occupying St. Pete. For many of us, it was our own creative space, a place to focus when no other would suffice. The Globe was more of a community center than a coffee shop. JoEllen, we thank you for the space you gave us and the atmosphere you created for us to thrive in throughout our trials and tribulations.
This article appears in Dec 22-28, 2011.