The popular Wilkes-Barre coffee shop is locked in a nasty, public dispute with its landlord…
For years, Abide Coffeehouse has asked people to slow down. Come in. Stay awhile. Order another cup if the conversation is going well. This week, the Downtown Wilkes-Barre café asked the community for something far more urgent.
In a candid Facebook post, the Shission family said years of unresolved building problems have left the business questioning how much longer it can remain open, setting off an outpouring of support from customers, neighboring businesses and community members who see Abide as far more than somewhere to grab a morning coffee.
The family’s statement outlined a long list of frustrations they say began shortly after purchasing the café in 2022, when the building itself changed hands. They described repeated flooding, unreliable heating and air conditioning, recurring fire alarms and other maintenance issues that, they say, have made operating the business increasingly difficult. During this week’s stretch of oppressive heat, those problems forced Abide to close early multiple days as temperatures inside the café climbed into the 90s.
The dispute has since drawn attention from both The Citizens’ Voice and WVIA. The property’s owner, Howard Klotzkin, has disputed many of the allegations, saying he has invested substantially in repairs, including a new HVAC system that is currently being installed. City officials have also been asked to help the two sides find a path forward.
But for many people watching from outside the story, the dispute itself almost seems secondary.
Midmorning at Abide has its own rhythm. Espresso hisses behind the counter while someone settles into a corner with a laptop they have no intention of closing anytime soon. A pair of friends linger over iced lattes long after the cups are empty. Someone stops in for a quick coffee and leaves carrying a loaf of sourdough, a bag of beans and news about next week’s book club.
Nothing about it feels hurried. Over the past several years, that unhurried rhythm has become part of downtown Wilkes-Barre’s daily life.
Alongside carefully prepared espresso drinks, matcha, breakfast sandwiches, pastries and seasonal specials, Abide has quietly built a calendar around the community itself. Book clubs gather after hours. Knit and crochet nights spill across the tables. Local artists, readers and tabletop gamers find reasons to return, often discovering they stayed longer than they intended.
It is the sort of place cities rarely set out to build but always seem grateful to have. That became clear almost immediately after the Facebook post appeared.
Hundreds of comments poured in from customers who described first dates, difficult seasons, unexpected friendships and ordinary afternoons that somehow became lasting memories inside the café’s walls. More than a few called Abide a safe place. Others simply called it home.
The encouragement spread beyond regular customers. Neighboring businesses urged people to stop in for coffee. Bettelli’s Villa publicly offered its dining room should Abide ever need a temporary place to continue serving customers. Others suggested fundraising efforts, relocation ideas or simply promised to keep showing up, one cup at a time.
The response reflected something that has quietly taken shape in Downtown Wilkes-Barre over the past decade.
The city’s food scene has grown one independent business at a time—not through grand openings alone, but through the relationships those places create. Restaurants, breweries, cafés and neighborhood bars have given people reasons to linger after work instead of driving home, to meet friends on a Tuesday instead of waiting for the weekend, to believe that downtown is once again a place where life unfolds instead of merely passing through.
Abide has become one thread in that fabric. Like any good neighborhood coffeehouse, it offers caffeine. More importantly, it offers permission to pause. In a culture increasingly built around convenience and speed, there is something quietly radical about a place that encourages conversation to last longer than the drink in your hand.
Whether the current dispute ends with repairs, relocation, or another solution remains uncertain. The Shission family and the property’s owner continue to offer sharply different accounts of what brought them here, and those questions will likely be answered somewhere beyond the walls of the café itself.
Inside those walls, however, the story feels much simpler. Every city has places that become woven into the routines of the people who live there. You don’t always notice them while they’re thriving. You notice them when you imagine the corner without the lights on, the familiar faces gone, the chair by the window sitting empty.
Restaurants close every day. Most leave behind an empty storefront.
A place like Abide leaves behind something harder to replace: the daily habit of gathering, the comfort of familiar faces, and the quiet assurance that, for an hour or two, there will always be a table waiting for you.
