Beware. I live.

I went to the unveiling of the new Huntridge last night at Rainbow’s End. With little fanfare, owner Eli Mizrachi cut straight to the posterboard, as it were, and did the big voila for his vision for turning the southeast corner of Maryland Parkway and Charleston Boulevard into a retail/office complex, with a restored — and improved — Huntridge as the anchor. There were a few minor squeaks of disappointment about the site not reincarnating as a movie or theater, but that was an exception to area residents’ warm ‘n’ huggy reception to the project. Mizrachi goes in front of the city planning commission Sept. 25 to get the initial nod for his plans, and he encouraged residents to show up. “It’s up to you to keep the Huntridge viable,” he said. Applause all around.

But one refrain touches on something that downtown is definitely overdue for: A coffeehouse. Indeed, the yearning for a caffeinated hangout space was a recurring theme when the ideas began popcorning around on what kind of shops might populate Huntridge 2.0.

“A coffee shop is a no-brainer,” said one. “The lobby is a natural for a coffeeshop,” said another. Indeed, downtown’s East Fremont Entertainment District is a great place for crawling from martini to martini, but where to hang when you want to catch a different type of buzz? Bygone joints such as the venerable Enigma Garden Cafe may have been ahead of their time — but maybe they time they were ahead of is, like, now.

Here’s a fat, screen-busting version of the full site plan.