The Caffeine Eccentric :: strings attached
Coffeehouses come and go like lovers; some stay longer than others. It’s simple: coffee is like sex; if it’s good we go back for more. Sex isn’t everything, however, and to make a relationship (or coffeehouse) worth remembering, we need a deeper connection.
The café has always been a place to connect. At some point near the turn of the century, the corner café as the "local hot spot" came to mean something quite different. Now, we take our jobs and our social lives with us when we leave the house or the office. Being denied Wi-Fi away from home feels a bit like discrimination, and living through an unexpected blackout is akin to torture; we’re suddenly forced to talk to people real-time and, no matter how hard we try, it’s impossible to edit our voicemail to any satisfaction.
But are we really at a loss when we plug out, or are we just returning to something better?
Indie coffee shops make connecting easy, both online and off. But when a writer-friend suggested that shops might cut back their Wi-Fi over the coming months, I shuttered to think how the reduction might drastically limit my digital mobility. I wondered why exactly I’d invested so much in connecting online away from the confines of my apartment. Like me, most New Yorkers expect Wi-Fi everywhere, and coffee shops play a big role in forming that expectation.
Alex Clark and coffee have been friends ever since he first roasted it for his parents at age 16; it was his first job and, despite a stint in the stock market and a career as a chemist, the industry has since held a special place in his heart. Anyone who’s met him might tell you he wears his joy on his sleeve. Perhaps it’s the love of the culture that affords him an optimistic view of the future, a sensibility that no doubt gave him the guts to set up shop a stone’s throw from the empty carcass of Rapture the legendary East Village queer-punk haven crushed by a burgeoning recession.
Ost Café, located at 12th Street and Avenue A, is the breath of fresh air for a neighborhood that in 2008 lost not one bubbling hot spot, but two; Gramstand, just a few doors from Rapture, closed in December.
Ost
Although Clark says Wi-Fi hasn’t been all that essential to business since the shop first opened, wireless connectivity is what loyal customers had come to expect. Alphabet City’s lingering nostalgia for both Gramstand and Rapture- and its reception of Ost- says that indie is about community. It’s customary to see a score of laptops strung to eager eyes and clumsy fingers adjusting monitors one minute, then lifting iced lattes the next. Patrons here connect as if their lives depend on it.
Clark says Ost has already formed a loyal customer base after only five months- with zero advertising. When I enter Wi-Fi user into the equation, Clark simply says it’s a matter of respecting the fact that it’s free. In other words, sitting for hours with a laptop on a single cup of joe is a no-no.
Even with the best of intentions, refusal to get up for a second cup lands us on a watch list. Enough offenders and Wi-Fi could leave for good. And for good reason.
Just like other businesses, coffee shops pay for rent and overhead costs like electricity, equipment and staff. And while Alex Clark takes no issue with Wi-Fi, a few shop owners across town have taken measures to avoid landing in the red.
’Snice
In response to ’Snice patrons who perch at their computers for hours, owner Michael Walter has decided to cut wireless altogether. When I ask if the falling economy and soaring unemployment have something to do with excessive lounging, he replies that most computer users fiddle on sites like Facebook, while considerably fewer engage in job searches. But Walter isn’t altogether unsympathetic. "It beats sitting in the house," he says, referring to finding perfect hot spots away from home. "Most New Yorkers live in cramped apartments. But it comes down to the fact that we’ve got limited space. It’s about real estate."
By city standards, the West Village location has a wealth of tables. Many however, are deuces, which greatly reduces the number of accommodations once customers start flashing their laptops. While some aren’t crazy about the change, for Walter, playing the villain has paid off; business is back on track, and cutting Wi-Fi has created an atmosphere more conducive to connecting people in the corporeal sense. Walter says the shop is now a "much more social place," with Wi-Fi gone and computer usage limited.
