Coffee Break With the Mad Hatter

The Scene: A fund-raiser for the Mad Hatter espresso coffee bar/performance club at another coffeehouse, Highland Grounds. Proceeds are to help the now-closed Hatter upgrade to meet city building regulations. (The 20-year-old owners of the Hatter “didn’t go the permit route” when they opened eight months ago, said benefit organizer Mariette Peeters.)

Who was there: About 150 guests, most in their late teens and early 20s; Mad Hatter owners Steve Harris and Jasan Radford; 27 performers, including folk singers, poets, comedians and performance artists, plus two bands. No celebs were in the crowd, although Chuck Forest, the all-time high ($172,800) “Jeopardy” winner, was on hand. “All over the world they ask the same question,” said Forest, who just quit a State Department job in the Middle East to appear on the game show again. “ ‘What is Alex Trebek really like?’ It drives you crazy.” The Buzz: Downright caffeinated on the subject of coffeehouses as a major ‘90s trend. They’re cheaper than restaurants and a rebellion to the Reagan years, say aficionados. “All revolutions start in coffeehouses,” said Highland Grounds co-owner Tom Kaplan. But his partner Richard Brenner cautioned, “It’s a business, not a home for the wayward.”

Dress Mode: Post-punk-Dylanesque-neo-surfer--as on a folk singer with a rad tan in a Guatemalan vest with torn Levis. Teen-age Bohemians don’t necessarily wear black.

Money Matters: Tickets were $20, and $1,500 was raised for the white paint, linoleum and plumbing the Mad Hatter needs to reopen.

Quoted: “I love the ‘90s” said comedian Taylor Negron. “There’s no sex, no drinking, all they have is coffee. It’s going to be very Edwardian. It’s going to be pinkies touching at tea.”