Ye Olde Shoppe

I work at a place that calls itself a café and ‘shoppe’. What is the difference between a shoppe and an ordinary old shop?, one may ask. As far as I can tell, the extra ‘pe’ on the end is just there to add a certain quaintness and olden days feel to the place. Apparently this is also achieved through the use of handwritten signs, lamps, a general reluctance to remove dust from horizontal surfaces and the hanging of dried flowers and, for some reason, corn, from the ceiling.
Even on the instruction pages in the kitchen, there are directions such as ‘sweep the shoppe before leaving’ and ‘always greet customers in the shoppe’. I’m under the impression that the ‘pe’ might stand for something, maybe ‘pretentious establishment’ or possibly ‘panda enclosure’, though I don’t see the relevance there.
One of the other factors which helps to turn this ordinary old shop into an extra special ‘shoppe’ in which you might want to spend lots of money, is the music which must be constantly played on a loop. It’s what one can only described as music for the deaf. Meditation music with names ‘Soul Suite’ and ‘From My Heart’. Even more disturbing is the large amount of CDs which boast the music of different areas played on panpipe, like ‘Panpipes of the Andes’, and the pans of pipe playing the music of Greece and Ireland.
Yes, yes, this music may be very atmospheric, and it may be they type of music that they play in all ‘shoppes’ these days, but come on, it’s not an elevator.
So triantiwontigongolope.