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rfmcdonaldThe frequently interesting Leah McLaren complained recently that wireless Internet is destroying cafes, by giving users of WiFi venues only.
She goes on to highlight at least one cafe owner who announce that, as soon as they got rid of the WiFi, they attracted high-spending, high-activity customers.
This subject interests me for--well--obvious reasons.
This picture shows me a half-hour ago where I am now, hoisting a mug to the camera at the Second Cup coffee shop on the southeastern corner of Bloor and Albany, just one block east of Bathurst Street, in the Annex. (Yes, this is a webcam picture, but I did what I could with Picnik.) Invested as I am in coffee, in wireless Internet, in coffee shops, and in the many wonderful ways in which these three items can interact, a reflexive skepticism of McLaren's thesis. Does the availability of wireless Internet keep people who would otherwise have bought more than a cup or two of coffee from doing so, or from interacting with other coffee shop owners? I'm inclined to distinguish between chains, like the Second Cup I am in now, and the less generic neighbourhood cafes which would be more rooted in their neighbourhoods and more amenable to spontaneous conversation between customers.
I also came across recently one piece by Virginia Heffernan in the New York Times, who--starting from crusades against portable electronic devices like ereaders in some benighted shops-- pointed out that the cafe is fundamentally individualistic, allowing people to interact or not as is the wont of an establishment that's basically a self-service space for free public assembly.
There's a battle brewing in my erstwhile Toronto neighbourhood, which I revisited on a recent trip home from my base in England. And I literally mean brewing – in the organic, fair-trade, slow-roasted Colombian sense.
It's no secret that urbanites everywhere like their coffee. It propels us to work, fuels social interaction during the day and occasionally keeps us up at night. So perhaps it's no surprise that the past few years have seen an explosion in the number of coffee houses in cities like Toronto. I'm not talking about the Starbucks invasion of neighbourhoods across the continent, but independent, brand-free cafés, the sort of places that are furnished with carefully selected thrift-shop finds, decorated by local artists and frequented by cardigan-wearing grad students and graphic designers who like their double iced frappuccinos large and their wireless on the house.
Sounds like a slice of modern urban paradise, doesn't it? All those freelance hipsters lounging around in vintage corduroys, sipping lavender chai tea and nibbling on wheat-free scones while uploading photos of last night's jam session onto Facebook. Seriously, dudes, what could be cooler?
Well, therein lies the problem. Unlike in, say, Vienna, where café-going typically involves heated intellectual debates over endless cups of Kaffee mit Schlag , the “third wave” coffee houses in Canada's largest city are attracting an increasing number of people who colonize them as work spaces. Call them home offices away from home, cafés cum study carrels. Ostensibly, they are public spaces, but they feel private sector.
She goes on to highlight at least one cafe owner who announce that, as soon as they got rid of the WiFi, they attracted high-spending, high-activity customers.
This subject interests me for--well--obvious reasons.
This picture shows me a half-hour ago where I am now, hoisting a mug to the camera at the Second Cup coffee shop on the southeastern corner of Bloor and Albany, just one block east of Bathurst Street, in the Annex. (Yes, this is a webcam picture, but I did what I could with Picnik.) Invested as I am in coffee, in wireless Internet, in coffee shops, and in the many wonderful ways in which these three items can interact, a reflexive skepticism of McLaren's thesis. Does the availability of wireless Internet keep people who would otherwise have bought more than a cup or two of coffee from doing so, or from interacting with other coffee shop owners? I'm inclined to distinguish between chains, like the Second Cup I am in now, and the less generic neighbourhood cafes which would be more rooted in their neighbourhoods and more amenable to spontaneous conversation between customers.
I also came across recently one piece by Virginia Heffernan in the New York Times, who--starting from crusades against portable electronic devices like ereaders in some benighted shops-- pointed out that the cafe is fundamentally individualistic, allowing people to interact or not as is the wont of an establishment that's basically a self-service space for free public assembly.
Not long ago in Brooklyn, a man with an iPod, whose headphones were whining, pulled off his headset. He asked two gossiping women nearby to talk more quietly. “Why don’t you turn your music down?” one of them asked. “It’s turned up so loud to drown you out!” shouted the man, in full 16th-century mode. Tempers spiked but, by cafe common law, both parties were wrong. There are all kinds of freedoms in cafes, but you can’t tell other people to turn it down. (The caffeine-induced irritability was a nice traditional touch, however.)
You also can’t tell cafe patrons to stop reading — even when e-readers don’t look (for now) as classy as paperbacks, newspapers or pamphlets. Sure, e-readers are dangerous: someone reading on one might make a note or check Facebook or play Scrabble. Sorry, proprietors — if they can find the Web with their tablet or phone, you shouldn’t be stopping them.
On July 1, Starbucks locations all over the United States started offering free, one-click, unlimited wireless service to their patrons. “We want to provide you with a great digital experience to go with your great cup of coffee,” the chain explains. Starbucks has long seemed to me like a flawed franchise that is squarely in the public good. In my eyes, this seals it.
As for the fancy tech-unfriendly cafes that shut out writers and readers like infidels in Ottoman times, maybe they should just style themselves as restaurants, with tablecloths, silverware and full service. If you have to bus your own table, history teaches, you’re in a cafe — and you can read and write what you want.
