I noted a little while ago that I had started trying to do work in a little coffee shop down the street. The two dollars, plus some loose change for a tip, seems a not unreasonably fee for two hours of reasonably uninterrupted work, even for one who is struggling monetarily. And I have a self-image to maintain, and haunting coffeehouses is a critical part of that, as is wearing corduroy sport coats, carrying erudite sounding books with me to unlikely places, and letting my beard grow wild at least twice a year.

The whole working in coffee shops is hardly a new phenomenon, but I came across this article from The Atlantic on working on coffee shops. The short version is: Coffee shops, not just for European writers anymore.

He does a good job of capturing the particular elements that make it a handy place to work. Some minimal distractions (people chatting, passing by, the view out the window), but not the all encompassing, soul crushing distraction of the television. Also, the social pressure to be utilitarian inside a coffee shop. You can’t just watch videos of cats doing something cute with yarn or whatever. You must appear useful – to be actually working on something.

For an extreme example of this, there is Summit, a coffeehouse in San Francisco’s Mission District, whose primary purpose is to provide local start ups a place to work.