The café writer

Twenty years ago I read an article about writing in cafés. This was well before I could afford a portable computer, but I liked the idea immediately, a lot. And I've liked it since, you'll notice how many posts I've devoted finding the perfect equipment for this sort of thing.

During 2001 I also had a very good place for it. It was a very friendly and cozy little cafe, where you quickly got to be friendly with the staff and even the owners who also worked there, and who I really liked. And there was also a small bunch of locals for who it was a hang-out, and I liked those guys too. I guess it was to me like bars are to many people, except with air and light, and no smell of beer.

Their food was even not bad at all. I would go there with my iBook (the first compact one, in white plastic, remember that? Lovely machine), get lunch and coffee, and hang out and read on the laptop, write, and chat.

That's the good life for me. Sadly hangouts like that don't happen often, it's a delicate balance between a place which has business enough to survive, but not so much that it's hectic and you don't get to know anybody. Even though I've lived many places in my adult life, and had many, many lunch hangouts, I've only found a couple of places which were of this nature. Maybe it's worse, maybe a place has to be too busy to have this atmosphere, to survive more than a couple of years.