• Weather
• Transportation/Traffic
• Consumer
• Education
• Environment
• Politics
• Election '08
• Real Estate
• Webtowns/Neighborhoods
• Under the Needle
• Obituaries
• Special Reports
• Corrections

• Election '08
• U.S.
• Washington, D.C.
• Africa
• Asia
• Australia
• Canada
• Europe
• Latin America
• Middle East

• Mariners/MLB
• Seahawks/NFL
• Sonics/NBA
• Storm/WNBA
• Sounders FC/Soccer
• College Football
• College Basketball
• High Schools
• Snow Sports
• Other Sports
• Art Thiel
• Jim Moore

• Boeing
• Microsoft
• VC Notebook
• Bill Virgin
• Real Estate
• Wire
• Tech Wire
• Personal Finance
• Sci-Tech
• Layoff Tracker

• Event Calendar
• Movies - Showtimes
• TV & Radio - Listings
• Restaurants/Dining
• Music
• Local Bands
• Books
• Video Games
• Theater/Fine Arts
• People
• A&E Wire
• Going Out
• Staying In

• Food
• Seattle@Home
• NW Gardens
• Getaways/Outdoors
• Snow Sports
• Health & Fitness
• Fashion
• Parenting
• MomSeattle
• DadSeattle
• Advice Columnists
• Horoscope
• Wheels

• Comics & Games
• Crossword

• Photos
• MySeattlePix
• Multimedia
• AP Video
• Buy Photos

• Editorials
• Letters
• David Horsey
• Forums
• Soundoffs
• Joel Connelly
• Robert Jamieson
• D. Parvaz
• Mary Swift

• Staff Blogs
• Reader Blogs
• Blog for us

• Home Delivery
• Mobile
• e-Edition
• E-mail Newsletters
• RSS Feeds
• P-I Reader
• Twitter

• Online ads
• Online text ads
• Newspaper ads
• Classified ads

• Classifieds
• Shopping
• Pets
• Personals
• Place an ad

Thursday, July 1, 2004

Wi-Fi's on the (coffee) house
The java giants charge but neighborhood cafes are pouring it on for free

By WINDA BENEDETTI
SPECIAL TO THE POST-INTELLIGENCER

Ponder this for a moment if you dare: Evil alien conquerors from a planet far, far, far away come to Seattle and, as part of their diabolical plan to break our collective spirit, order us to give up either a) coffee, or b) the Internet for all eternity ... that, or suffer some indescribably heinous death at the dangerous end of a supergalactic neutron ray.

Which would you give up?

		Wendy Wahman / P-I

For many of us, the mere contemplation of losing either one on a permanent basis ... well, it's simply too horrific, yes? If there are two things we are fiendishly addicted to it's our coffee and our Internet.

Breathe easy. There is, as of yet, no news of evil forces bent on depriving us of our most precious legal addictions. What's especially noteworthy these days is the way in which we're almost never forced to choose when it comes to indulging our twin predilections. Coffee OR Internet? No, no, no. Here in Seattle, coffee AND Web access have become the double-tall order of the day -- just add laptops.

Coffeehouses throughout the greater Emerald City are now offering wireless access to the Internet. But while the larger outfits (Starbucks, Tully's, Ladro, etc.) have grabbed gobs of attention with their for-pay wireless services, it is Seattle's independent coffeehouses that truly deserve the spotlight. All across town the smaller establishments are broadcasting a revolution: Come visit us, our Wi-Fi is free! Yes, FREE!

"When people charge you, they're ripping you off," says Jeff Babcock, owner of Zoka Coffee Roaster and Tea Co.

		Karen Ducey / P-I
	Andrea Murphy likes taking her laptop to the Zoka Coffee Roaster and Tea Co. in Wallingford because "you see people you know if you're a regular."

Strong words, but Babcock is a believer. He offers free wireless Internet access (aka Wi-Fi) at Zoka cafe in Green Lake and at his new coffeehouse -- University Zoka -- in the U District. In fact, University Zoka was designed and created specifically with the laptop and Internet crowd in mind (lots of power outlets and plenty of tables).

Meanwhile, Kellan Elliott-McCrea, a programmer for Groundspring.org and a caffeine fiend extraordinaire, has started a Web site dedicated to documenting Seattle's free Wi-Fi coffeehouses. This participatory site -- at seattle.wifimug.org -- welcomes visitors to post information about the free Wi-Fi cafes they find.

When he started the site back in October, Elliott-McCrea expected he'd end up with 10 to 15 java joints listed. The site now boasts reviews of more than 45 establishments.

There's Fremont Coffee, Herkimer Coffee and Zeitgeist Coffee, as well as Perkatory Cafe and Victrola Coffee & Art. Visit the Elliott Bay Cafe in the basement of The Elliott Bay Book Co. and you'll find a wireless haven nestled amid book-lined walls. Meanwhile, tea drinkers can sip and surf freely at Mr. Spots Chai House in Ballard and at Teahouse Kuan Yin in Wallingford.

"I've been finding new free places every week," says Andrew Kwatinetz, perched behind a laptop in the upstairs loft at Top Pot Doughnuts on Fifth Avenue. A former Microsoft program manager who now is pursuing a career as a screenwriter, Kwatinetz gets his writing done at a variety of Seattle's wireless coffeehouses.

"I don't like working in seclusion. I'd rather work around people," he says, adding with a laugh: "Part of it is my wife wants me out of the house."

It works like this:

If an establishment offers Wi-Fi that means it's using radio waves to create a zone of connectivity to the Internet in the surrounding area (a "hot spot"). To access this signal, you must have a Wi-Fi-enabled laptop or other device. Most new laptops are set up to access the Web wirelessly. If your laptop doesn't come equipped with a wireless adapter card, you can always buy one.

Places like Caffe Ladro and Starbucks charge users $5 and $10 a day (respectively) and $30 a month to use their Internet connections.

But business owners who offer Wi-Fi for free say it's a win-win for everybody. Customers get to cruise the Net while they drink their joe and the cafe gets more customers (not to mention customers who, ideally, stay longer and buy more goods).

"It's a fun and interesting way for independent coffee shops to do something different than what Starbucks does," says Elliott-McCrea.

"For me, it's about creating a coffeehouse experience that's relevant to my customers," says Jody Hall, who opened Verité Coffee in Madrona six month ago with free Wi-Fi in mind. She estimates that an average of 25 to 30 customers use the service daily. "In today's culture, wireless is part of our daily lives. I want our coffeehouse to be a place people meet and gather, and if that's something they need for their meeting, then I want to have that."

Like many cafe owners, David Schomer of Espresso Vivace Roasteria already had a high-speed Internet connection set up in the store for his office use. So he says it was easy and inexpensive for him to allow customers access to that service.

		Karen Ducey / P-I
	Victrola Coffee & Art customers, from left, Amy Coffman, Tim Matsui and Billy Perry take advantage of the free Wi-Fi at the Capitol Hill coffeeshop.

Wi-Fi costs so little for business owners to maintain ($50 to $70 a month for the Internet connection plus a one-time $100 for a router) that Babcock of Zoka Coffee is outraged at the prices some coffeehouses are charging for their Wi-Fi.

"It's insane," he says. "It's greedy."

With so many coffeehouses offering Wi-Fi for free, it seems a head-scratcher why anyone would pay at all.

This question became even more relevant last month when wireless Internet provider Cometa Networks announced it was going under and would be shutting down its for-pay Wi-Fi networks at Tully's Coffee and other retailers.

But Doug Luce, CEO of Telerama Internet, insists pay Wi-Fi service still makes good business and good sense. Pittsburgh-based Telerama currently operates 18 Wi-Fi hot spots in Seattle at such places as Caffe Ladro and Cherry Street Coffee, and plans to operate 100 in Seattle by the end of the year. A day pass to their service costs $4.95 and a month pass is $29.95 (which includes a dial-up and e-mail account that can be used at home).

"There's a benefit to both the coffeehouse and the customer that uses the system," Luce says. For the coffeehouse, buying into the service means gaining a technical support team. "Since we're charging for it, you have an expectation that it's going to work. If it doesn't, we send people out there to fix it."

This way, people paid to make coffee aren't forced to try to fix technical issues they may not be trained to deal with. Also, Luce points out, customers who pay for Wi-Fi access through his company can expect to find a good, solid Internet signal anywhere in the establishment providing it.

As Kwatinetz has found, the connection quality can, at times, be less than reliable at the free Wi-Fi cafes. "At some of the places the connection gets dropped frequently and at some of them it's real slow," he says.

Because he spends so much time working outside his home, Kwatinetz paid for Wi-Fi services through Cometa. Now that Cometa is defunct, he says he'll most likely try to find another pay service to use in addition to the free Wi-Fi ... a decision prompted by recent problems at a free Wi-Fi cafe that left him offline for an entire morning.

Indie cafe owners admit that technical problems with wireless can, on occasion, turn into a hassle for both them and their customers. Snags and issues aside, they insist that free Wi-Fi has been overwhelmingly appreciated by customers and a boon to business.

"What it did for us initially was get the word out about us quickly," says Michael Prins, owner of Herkimer Coffee, which opened with Wi-Fi available a year ago.

"I think it is a big draw," says Anya Webb, owner of Fremont Coffee. She suspects she's stealing at least a little bit of business from the Caffe Ladro across the street (where the Wi-Fi is not free). "It brings people in."

An office away from the office

Of course, it's not just coffee places that are luring in customers with the scent of free Wi-Fi. Ralph's Grocery & Deli (2035 Fourth Ave.) and one Pagliacci Pizza (4529 University Way N.E.) both serve up free wireless Internet.

POLL

Have you ever used wireless Internet access in a coffee shop?  16.4% Yes 83.6% No Total Votes: 2196

Still, there's something about the combination of coffeehouses and Wi-Fi ... it's like strawberries and chocolate, or pizza and beer. The simultaneous consumption of liquid caffeine and wireless Web somehow makes perfect sense.

"Where else can you go where you can hang out and use your laptop for a long period of time?" Luce says.

His company studied wireless usage at different types of businesses and found that coffeehouses on a whole are at least five to 10 times more populated with Wi-Fi users than other businesses.

"People don't go to bars and restaurants with laptops," he says. "They don't go to Laundromats."

Schomer of Espresso Vivace points out that coffeehouses always have been a place for reading, studying and reflecting. Wireless Internet hasn't really changed the behavior, it's just changed the method.

With the Internet beamed throughout his establishment, "It's like my shop has an enormous library in it, that's the way I see it," Schomer says.

The combination of coffee and Internet makes so much good sense ... walk into a Seattle coffee shop these days and you may wonder if you've wandered into an office by accident.

Step inside Herkimer Coffee on just about any workday afternoon and you're likely to find up to a dozen patrons tap-tap-tapping away at laptops as they sip at their brew.

"I think a lot of people are using coffeehouses as a place to get some core work done," Hall says. "They're not distracted by the phone ringing. You can sit down and concentrate."

Karen Borsetti, a consultant for public accounting firm Deloitte & Touche in Boston, was visiting a friend in Seattle recently and needed to get some work done. She headed to Fremont Coffee.

"It's essentially like I'm in my office," she says, sipping coffee at a table piled with files, papers and, of course, a laptop. "I'm a coffee shop person. I like the atmosphere, the music, the people. It's like I don't mind working so much because I'm here."

On an average day, Kwatinetz goes to two wireless establishments to get his work done.

"I find inspiration from different places. There's a creative energy in a place like this," he says from the stylish confines of Top Pot where the walls are lined with books and the front of the store is one big window onto the Belltown street life. "In terms of me being disciplined about getting my writing done, it puts me in the right frame of mind. At home there are too many distractions. It's too easy to do the dishes."

Etiquette lessons

There are no hard and fast rules, but certain behavior is expected of customers who use their local coffee shop as their office-away-from-the-office.

First, business owners remind customers that "free Wi-Fi" really means "free Wi-Fi with purchase."

"It's a customer service, like the gas station that checks your oil and does your windshields," Babcock says.

"You don't stay if it gets too crowded or overwhelmed," says Elliott-McCrea. "If you're sitting there for four or five hours, you don't just buy one cup of coffee."

"My rule of thumb is, you need to buy something for every time you ask to use the bathroom key," Kwatinetz says, adding, "I always try to take a small table. I don't leave a big mess. I often invite friends. I feel like I'm an advocate."

Herkimer owner Prins makes this request: "If they're doing business, they should make sure everyone else doesn't have to listen to their business."

Mostly though, Hall has found that at Verité the customers have developed a code of behavior on their own.

"People are buddying up together to share the outlets," she says. "We have a limited amount of seats and people are taking it upon themselves to say, 'Hey can I share your table?' "

She points to only one truly problematic aspect of the coffeehouse/laptop combination: "You don't want to spill your coffee on your keyboard."

GET ONLINE, NO CHARGE

Here is a sampling of Seattle coffeehouses that offer free Wi-Fi.

For a more exhaustive list, see Caffeinated and Unstrung and Wi-Fi-FreeSpot Directory. Want us to know about a Wi-Fi spot? E-mail freewifi@seattlepi.com.

Add P-I Lifestyle headlines to
My web site My Yahoo! Google More options