Laptop Warriors Find Cozy Homes In Coffee Shops, Libraries With Free Wifi

Laptop warriors find cozy homes in coffee shops, libraries with free WiFi
By Janet Cho
The Plain Dealer January 26, 2010, 11:30AM

CLEVELAND -- Every morning, Roger White of Cleveland's Edgewater neighborhood trudges over to Truffles Pastry Shop, orders a scone and a steaming cup of joe, and fires up his laptop.


Logging in to the free WiFi, he then turns the cafe into a cozy extension of his living room, surfing the Web, catching up with the other regulars, and downing an endless river of coffee over a three-hour visit.

White is among a growing legion of laptop warriors who populate Cleveland's Wifi hotspots, seeking out libraries, restaurants and coffee shops with free Internet access. Drawn by the fresh coffee, good music and interesting people, these laptop-dependent folks can't imagine life without plugging in.

While nobody knows exactly how many laptop users frequent such sites, by all accounts their ranks are growing.

"At different times of day, you'll come in here and there's somebody plugged in at every outlet," said White, who loves the vibe at Truffles so much he canceled his Internet service at home. "On Saturdays and Sundays, the place is busy all day.

"Yes, it would be cheaper at home, but No. 1, I don't make as good coffee, and No.
2, I have to get my scones somewhere."

Being with other laptop warriors helps combat the biggest downside to telecommuting, which is social isolation, said Debra Dinnocenzo, president of VirtualWorks!, a Wexford, Pa., firm that specializes in telecommuting, and author of "How to Work Together From a Distance."

While having a virtual workplace gives us the flexibility to work anywhere, "we are innately social beings and we like to be together," she said.

Since the economy soured and more workers lost their jobs, Truffles owner James Orlando has noticed more people using his pastry shop as an informal office from which to network and look for a new job.

"They want to be somewhere, but they don't want to be alone," he said.

"Enjoying free WiFi is a great way to socialize without having to talk to anybody," he said.

Laptops themselves have become smaller, cheaper, lighter, faster and more powerful than comparable desktops, said Andy Abramson, co-host of the "World Technology Roundup" on kenradio.com and author of the blog "Working Anywhere".

Combine this with the soaring popularity of social networking sites and the explosion in free WiFi access, and suddenly, "more people can connect to each other in more places more often," he said.

"That's led to our love affair with laptops," he added.

Josh Handley, who just got his degree to teach high school math and is looking for a job, said he stops by the Phoenix Cafe on Coventry several times a week to go online.

"I really do prefer this to the library," he said. "There's something about what's going on in the background that keeps you focused.

"I wouldn't come here if the coffee wasn't so good. And you don't get Louis (Armstrong) at other places," he added, pointing up to the speakers playing "What a Wonderful World."

"On Sunday, in the middle of the day, it was wall-to-wall laptops, and some tables had two laptops on them."

Some free Wi-Fi hotspots:


Arabica Coffee Houses: various locations.


Barnes & Noble: various locations.


Borders Book Store: various locations.


Caribou Coffee: various locations.


Cleveland Public Library: various branches.


Cuyahoga County Public Library: various branches.


Dewey's Coffee Caf , 13201 Shaker Square, Cleveland.


Gypsy Beans & Baking Co., 6425 Detroit Ave., Cleveland.


Koffie Kafe, 2521 Market Ave., Cleveland.

Liquid Planet Caf : locations in Cleveland, Cleveland Heights and Westlake.


McDonald's restaurants: Check McDonaldsNEO.com.


Panera Bread: various locations.


Phoenix Cafes: Locations in Cleveland, Cleveland Heights, Lakewood and South Euclid.


Starbucks: Free for AT&T DSL customers and those who register their Starbucks cards; $3.99 for others. Check starbucks.com for locations.


The Stone Oven: locations in Cleveland, Cleveland Heights and Woodmere.


Touch Supper Club, 2710 Lorain Ave., Cleveland.


Truffles Pastry Shop, 11122 Clifton Blvd., Cleveland.


Tower City Center , Cleveland.


Winking Lizard Taverns: various locations.


Yours Truly Restaurants: various locations.
Jason Levy, who is looking for a job in building maintenance or warehouse management, finds it easier to job-hunt from a Starbucks or McDonald's than to try to get stuff done at home.

Sitting next to the window at the Starbucks on Ridge Road in Brooklyn, he said: "There are a lot of people who use places like this as their office rather than renting a space."

Carl Jones, founder of Phoenix and Arabica coffee houses and master coffee roaster at the Phoenix Cafes, has offered free WiFi ever since it became available.

For business people, "we've become kind of a semi-private office."

Not only do his cafes attract different groups of people, but the demographics of those sitting at his tables change throughout the day. The business people who stop by in the morning are replaced by an influx of high school students after school, and a whole different crowd of college students and night owls comes in at night.

Jones doesn't quibble with people who don't order very much, although most customers do.

His informal rules are simple: "Buy a cup of coffee now and then, treat the staff nicely, and if it's crowded, invite somebody else to sit down at your table.

"If people are helpful and we're not packed, we don't mind them staying," he added.

At the Phoenix Cafe in Cleveland Heights' Coventry neighborhood, every outlet had a laptop plugged into it on a recent Tuesday morning.

"I can't study in my apartment; too many distractions," said Kareem Hindi, a second-year economics student at Cleveland State University sitting near a window. "Here there's no TV, and just look, I can go outside if I need a break.

He says he lingers for nine to 12 hours at a time, nursing a $2 cup of green tea that gets weaker and weaker with every refill of hot water.

At the next table, Erin Henry, a family nurse practitioner at Case Western Reserve Nursing School, was huddled next to a toasty fire, listening to her iPod and cramming for her board exams.

"At home, I keep thinking about all the other things I should be doing," she said. "Here, it feels more homey. If I get up to use the bathroom, I can ask someone, 'Hey, can you watch my stuff for me?'"

Christine Cano, an associate professor of French at Case Western Reserve University, said: "You see the same phenomenon everywhere in Paris. There are certain cafes where everybody brings their laptops."

She's researching the prolific letter-writing habits of Marcel Proust and says there's no better place than a coffee house to get things done.

"I've done my best work in cafes, because this work if very isolating," she said. "This morning, I tried to work at home, but I just got my things and came here."

At the Starbucks in Woodmere, Blake Cook of Ashtabula, who teaches art classes at Cuyahoga Community College, was savoring the best seat in the house with his feet up in front of the gas fireplace.



View full sizeGus Chan, The Plain DealerRob Troxell, of Cleveland Heights works on his laptop at the Phoenix Coffee on Coventry last Friday. Troxell works at Phoenix but spends his downtime there too. He's been a barista for the past two months. He said the ubiquity of laptops, cell phones and PDAs is a sign of the times, and something he's constantly reminding his students to turn off during class.

Preferring to surf the Internet in public places rather than home alone "is an odd thing, but it must mean that we crave the physical presence of other people."

"It's like having the TV on in the background," he said. "You feel like you're part of the action even if you're not watching."

White, the regular at Truffles, said laptops give users a chance to both appear busy and be sociable, because you can turn to the person next to you and say, "Look at this, look what I just read."

White says it's ironic that so many laptop warriors use the Internet access to log onto social media sites such as Facebook or to check their e-mails from other people, but don't say a word to the person sitting next to them.

"What's really funny is when I'm on Facebook and I get a message from one of my friends and they're sitting right over there," he said.