At 9:30am on a Thursday, the Harrys began to arrive at Beachwood
Cafe. Young women with neon hair extensions, colorful crocheted cardigans, and
shirts illustrated with cherries, sunflowers and the word “Pleasing” piled out
of rental cars and Ubers.
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They were trailed by their mothers and filming on their phones.
By 10:30am, the mom-and pop eatery, which has been around since the 1970s in
the heart of Los Angeles’ Beachwood Canyon, had a 30-minute wait, and a swarm
of teenage girls taking photos in front of its blue door.
Who are the Harrys? They are Harry Styles superfans, and hordes
of them have been making the pilgrimage to Beachwood Cafe, a cheerful spot with
an all-day menu off a small village square, since December 2019. That is when
the superstar briefly name-checked the restaurant in the song “Falling”: “And
the coffee’s out at the Beachwood Cafe,” he sang. That one line — which
Styles-olgoists believe to be about his ex Camille Rowe, a former Beachwood
Canyon resident — sent a bat signal.
Oklahoman Marley
Williams, 14, shows video from a Harry Styles concert to Noelle Jay, who is
from Chicago, at the Beachwood Cafe in Los Angeles, on January 27, 2023.
“I just felt like coming here would complete the whole Harry
Styles experience,” said Caysey Gossweiler, 27, who traveled from Maryland to
attend one of the three concerts that Styles would perform at the Kia Forum
that weekend in late January.
“It’s panic-inducing; I could literally evaporate thinking about
it,” said Noelle Jay, 26, of being in the same space where Styles once ate
eggs. “He’s like a god,” added her cousin Mia Tucci, 17, whose hair was a shade
of Kelly green. “He’s like my comfort person, my light, my inspiration, all of
the above,” Jay replied.
Nearby, Nathan Freeman, 26, and his wife, Shannon Freeman, 25,
were taking photos of Taylor Anderson and Alyson Johnston — 20-year-old college
students from Oregon they had just met. “It was like — where should we go for
breakfast? Harry told us where to go!” Nathan Freeman said gleefully.
People arrive at the
Beachwood Cafe in Los Angeles, on January 27, 2023. Pop star Harry Styles
name-checked the cheerful restaurant with an all-day menu in a lyric from his
song “Falling,” and his fans have been flocking to the Beachwood Canyon spot
ever since.
Over avocado toast at a table inside, Anderson — who made her
family do a detour during an Amalfi Coast vacation to visit a street where
Styles filmed parts of the “Golden” music video (she found the location by
searching Google Maps for landmarks in the background of the behind-the-scenes
video) — offered her perspective on the fandom.
‘Harry coded’“It’s a family in a lot of ways,” she said. “A good example of
how the online world connects people.”
Johnston finished watching a video on her phone of Styles doing
Pilates, via the fan account Harry Florals, and added: “You can just kind of
look at someone, and if they’re our age and wearing clothes that resemble the
Harry style it’s like, OK, these are people you can talk to who are nice.”
Twin sisters and
Harry Styles fans Jennifer and Jessica Sata Ayala, who came with their father
to see a Harry Styles concert the previous night, outside the Beachwood Cafe in
Los Angeles, on January 30, 2023.
“The term is ‘Harry coded,’” explained Xoee Margolis, 26, who
was wearing neon orange Adidas Gazelles (inspired by ones Styles wears from the
Gucci/Adidas collaboration). She held two new Beachwood Market totes in her
hand, which she had seen while browsing the cafe’s merchandise section online
from her home in New York City. “Wearing a little cherry is an ode to the
‘Cherry’ song, carrying around a Beachwood bag the shoes are Harry-coded — it’s
a vibe.”
“I made the mistake of not bringing in merch earlier,” said the
cafe’s owner, Mike Fahim. But when he discovered eBay and Etsy accounts selling
knockoff merchandise for his restaurant, he saw a business opportunity.
When Fahim took over the cafe in fall 2019, the crowd was a mix
of locals, tourists headed to the nearby Hollywood sign, business lunches from
film studios, and celebrities flying under the radar. In early 2020, the
clientele started shifting to Gen Z girls and young women — some of whom bring
cardboard cutouts of Styles for photos — and, in some cases, their parents.
Fahim, who had never heard of Styles, embraced the affiliation.
Harry Styles fans with their collections wristbands for the
pop singer’s concerts they have attended, at the Beachwood Cafe in Los Angeles,
on January 30, 2023.
Now, the tip jar says “Harry Tips Here.” A sign depicted in a
mural declares “The Coffee’s Out,” referring to the line in the song featuring
Beachwood. And he and his staff are happy to take photos and answer fans’
questions about what Styles is said to have eaten (the Beachwood Scramble), and
where he sat (the table at the center of the room, and the booth in the far
right corner).
Someone on the staff monitors “the whole situation on Instagram
and TikTok,” Fahim said. If Styles is in town — as he was for two weeks in the
fall, when the cafe ran out of menu items and merchandise — they double up on
staff and supplies.
On the Saturday of Styles’ concert run at the Forum, a line
started forming outside the cafe an hour before opening. It included Emma
Szumowski, 21, from Massachusetts, who stood with her parents, Laura and Steve
McMahon. The concert she had gone to the previous evening was her sixth time
seeing Styles. She had tickets for one more show in Los Angeles and two in Palm
Springs that week.
“I get it, I’m a big Springsteen fan — I started following him
around in ’84,” said Steve McMahon, 58, who, at his daughter’s request, had
gotten up early to be second in line.
Harry Styles on a fan’s T-shirt at the Beachwood Cafe in Los
Angeles, on January 27, 2023.
Wait times were between two and three hours throughout the
weekend. At one point Saturday, the diners inside the cafe broke out into a
loud rendition of “Falling.” Before the wave of Styles fans, Fahim typically
served 300 guests from Friday to Sunday; he now serves 1,000 on average. The
locals still come, but they often grumble about the wait times and lack of
parking — and if they see a line, they steer clear.
Most fans agreed that this was no longer a place where Styles
was likely to set foot. This realization sometimes prompted fan conspiracy
theories — did he mention the cafe because he
knew it would send fans flocking there, and it was too painful a place to
return because of its romantic history there? But even if that were the case,
“it’s cool to envision him sitting in there being all sad and lonely,” said
Bryn Langrock, 23.
And if Styles did dine at Beachwood Cafe again, Fahim says he
knows what he would tell him: “Thank you”.
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