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The summer before my senior year of high school, my student council moderator asked me to attend a teen forum at the Old State Capitol. It was a meeting sponsored by a group called Plan Baton Rouge, which was gathering ideas from high-schoolers about how to improve downtown.

I participated enthusiastically and even went to a follow-up session they had for the kids with really good ideas (thank you very much). But even at 17, I had the cynicism to think, They're never going to do anything with this.

Lucky for me, I was wrong. Since returning to Baton Rouge, I have enjoyed the new, revitalized version of downtown. I've been to a screening at the Shaw Center, had cocktails at Tsunami and eaten business lunches at Capital City Grill.

But my favorite addition to the downtown area has been the new PJs coffee shop at Lafayette and Convention. (Funny, all the new things I've done downtown have been in the same strip; I've got to get out more.)

Never much of a fan of the old PJs (on Essen, now the Starlight Espresso Cafe), I didn't have high hopes for this one. But because I'm a coffee shop connoisseur, I had to visit. And I'm so glad I did. The shop is small and bright, with two walls facing the streets made almost entirely of windows. The view from these windows is amazing: a giant oak tree shading the store from the sun setting over the Mississippi River, an old, French-Quarter-looking building whose purpose I know nothing about, and people actually walking down Third Street (for, as all Baton Rouge natives know, pedestrians who are not homeless are quite rare here).

But the ambiance wasn't the only plus. When I stopped staring at the view, I turned to see a pastry case that made my heart sing: petits fours, carrot cake, lemon squares, giant cinnamon rolls, fresh-baked cookies and boxes of King Cake stocked the shelves.

I hadn't seen a coffee shop pastry case like that since CC's fired John Folse. I was in heaven. I ordered a white petits four with a pink rosebud on top and a dose of single latte with skim milk. Both were completely satisfying, as was the friendly banter with the two law students sitting at the table next to me. The one from New Orleans said, "Yeah, I used to go to the CC's by my house to study, but now I drive all the way downtown just to get some PJs".

Then they decided to take a break and walk on the levee before the sun completely set. (I think they were on a study-date.) I read for a little while, sipped my latte and decided I would come back tomorrow.