A combination deli, coffeehouse laundromat with wi-fi--for singles to hang out at that isn't a saloon. Meet people who do other things than drink at night. Stock it with recently dated mags from the EAPL. Perhaps sell very inexpensive 6 month memberships and run it as a cooperative with only members getting to use the laundry machines and two tier food prices for members and walk-ins. Then you wouldn't have to charge to use the washer and dryer. Perhaps run them on tokens with members getting enough to cover an average of 2 or 3 loads a week.
Have a couple of shelves where Nature's Way and Easton Baking Co. can sell their nuts and chocolates (or donuts and cookies) or other stores take a turn extending their own "square footage" into this place. See what sells and do it again.

A really good woman's fashion store. Easton already has a good men's store (London Shop), now we need something for the women around here who have to search the malls for good clothes. Remember Grollman's, Sigal's? Margaret Moore's?
We have enough coffee shops already. Easton will get like Greenwich Village where I have lived for 55 years, and where the old Irish neighborhood bars have all been replaced with Starbucks and their clones. Now, when starry-eyed young folks from the MidWest arrived in the big city and would hang out in those colorful waterholes, and slowly slip into semi-alcoholism, NOW they hang out in coffee bars like those the goood rebbe wants where they can bond with their laptops and slip into....hypercaffeination!
You have your choice, young slackers with laptops and no friends: booze or the berry, which Willam Cowper said "cheers but doth not inebriate!"

Found it!

Time, as he passes us, has a dove's wing,
Unsoil'd, and swift, and of a silken sound.
- Task (bk. IV, l. 211)

long ago when things were very prosperous in easton if there was an empty storeroom all you had to be was a legal operation pay your rent etc if it was good you were patronized if it was not good you went broke today there are toomany know it all people in the government deciding the thumbs up or down before you get the ok if this process was in place around the 1900s easton never would have been prosperous

People don't sit around making regulations, thinking "How can we prevent our citizens from making money?" Rather regulations are written to address specific problems that arise. You might want to take a course in theory of the development of law this summer. Hint: first people abandoned their elderly parents. Only then did the Ten Commandments include "Honor your father and your mother." Some regulations may be outdated (like the need for a militia) and granted, there is no mechanism to revisit these regulations, and surely there are some that we'd all agree are no longer necessary. But to condemn the government (that is, our elected officials) for ruining business is naive and unhelpful. Humans are social animals and thus we are hierarchical. There is no way you can take hierarchy out of human relations. You'd do better thinking about how to improve government rather than eliminating it. Save that latter dream for the messianic age.

I love Jonathan's idea about a laundromat, but mostly I love the idea of having to be a cooperative member, perhaps a resident of downtown Easton?, to have access. And then, yes, it could be simultaneously stocked with "take one/leave one" book shelves, self-service coffee/hot cocoa, and some comfortable, peaceful couches to wait for your laundry to be done. But there seem to be some other things which might also be nice to have there, too: a dry cleaner, a well-stocked grocery, a dog groomer or doggie day care, a SALAD BAR.

Yes, e, I thought of a soup and salad place with great homemade breads--like The Loaf and Ladle in Exeter NH. But Josie's already does this (along with sandwiches) and I didn't want to take business from her. The key is to think of something that can survive without a lot of walk-in traffic (Easton is so much smaller than Bethlehem or Allentown) but good enough to draw people who don't live downtown. How about a while-you-wait shoe repair place? With coffee and sofas. it took months for the guy in Palmer to do a simple fix to my Birks last spring. He's that backed up.