They are sometimes called porchers, the people who flock to the porch of the Chilmark Store at noontime each day throughout the summer. The focus of the congregation is usually on the right-hand side as you walk up the front steps. While food — pizza, wraps, coffee and chips — is their common bond, this is also the time when people catch up on the day’s gossip and news.

Actually, the bloodline of the porchers goes back for some 20 years, when what is now called the Chilmark Tavern was Feasts. Adjacent to that storied eatery was Café Latte. Today the space is a bank. But for several formative years,Café Latte was an influential meeting ground for the movers and shakers of the day. WhenCafé Latte lost its leader, Deborah Lesser, who turned to other pursuits, no one else could run it with the same finesse.

So the core group that met there gradually migrated to the porch. And this is where they have perched ever since. The group is inclusive. Artists, actors, poets, writers and year-round locals all mingle over lunch. Add to the mix a physician, a visiting Hollywood screenwriter, a local cop, a prize-winning scientist, a nationally-known comedian and a family on its Vineyard vacation. And then you have the porchers.

Someone said it is a little like the Left Bank of Paris in the 1920s. I wouldn’t know about that, but I do know that I love the front porch of the Chilmark Store.

— Peter Simon