Coffee Shop Unicorns
Good Coffee. Good Wi-Fi. And Plugs.
The impossible combination.
We traveled plenty this past year for Crew, hitting many major cities including New York, Boston, San Francisco, and London.
While traveling, one of our biggest challenges was finding good coffee shops to work out of. Not in the sense of just good coffee, but also good Wi-Fi and enough plugs to hunker down and bang out some solid work.
Once we got to a new city, one of the first things I did was try to find the best coffee shops around the area where our meetings were.
I Googled, searched Foursquare and Yelp but in most cases we ended up gambling. Many of the coffee shops met one or two of our needs, but rarely did they hit all three.
We’d wait in line for a coffee only to find out there were no plugs.
Or we’d find plugs but connecting to Wi-Fi was like firing up AOL on a dial-up connection.
We needed to move. And we’d lose time trying to find a new spot, often ending up not being able to get anything done.
This was painful.
When you’re in and out of meetings, that 1–2 hour gap in between to catch up on things is crucial. Not finding a place to work is a drag.
Eventually we found a few places in each city that had the right combo of great coffee, solid wi-fi, and plugs to get stuff done.
We thought making a list of these places could probably be helpful for other people trying to get work done while traveling.
We took stock.
Over the past few months, and with the help of some friends, we covered 11 major cities and 100 coffee shops.
Our goal was to find enough coffee shops in each city so you could move from coffee shop to coffee shop on foot.
We recorded Wi-Fi passwords and plug locations when possible to limit the awkward ask for a Wi-Fi password and the barista pointing for the 100th time to the ‘obvious’ sign on the cash register.
No more having to scan cafes for outlet locations to find the lone corner with a plug.
We sorted coffee shops by city and created public Foursquare lists and a Google Map so you can access everything from your phone.
Here’s Montreal’s list for example:
Each coffee shop has a tip with the Wi-Fi password and info on the plug situation.
If you have Foursquare, you can login to save a list. You’ll then be able to see the lists through Foursquare’s mobile app.
To view all the coffee shops sorted by city, go here:
If you’re traveling to a new city and need to find a spot to work, we hope this helps.
No office. No problem.
A few photos from our coffee shop hop:
Friends who helped out with this:
New York — Thanks Peter Boyce, Joshua Gross and Matt Strom
Vancouver — Thanks Tristan Pratt, Brendan Walker, Kyle Rubin
London — Thanks Isadora Arredondo, Karma Bertelsen
Boston — Thanks Joy Mahoney
Originally published at backstage.pickcrew.com.
Got an idea?
Work with the best designers and developers. Over 10 million people have used products made on CREW. And over 3 million people have read our blog. Subscribe here.
