This morning the Vivace espresso empire was closed, so that employees and customers and friends could take part in a memorial for general manager Brian Fairbrother, who died after a recent bicycling accident. Walkers gathered at Vivace’s Alley 24 location, in South Lake Union, at 9 a.m. and proceeded to the spot where Fairbrother was found, on a flight of concrete stairs.
A “ghost cycle” hangs in the tree that shades the path there, and walkers decorated it with flowers, then gathered as Vivace’s David Schomer and Geneva Sullivan and others spoke about Fairbrother’s life and example, trying to get past the tears. Since Fairbrother was a more-than-20-year Vivace employee, his barista colleagues are numerous, and the gathering was also a reunion of sorts, which, someone observed, was the kind of thing you tend to see only in movies, the ways people touch other people in life, and leave a lasting impression on multitudes.
