Hello Settlers!

Hello fellow Cafe Settlers! And welcome to my blog! What is a "Cafe Settler" you ask? Good question! Read on!

As a self employed techie, I love working from coffee shops around San Francisco. I have a small home office that I work from a few days a week. But I like working from coffee shops to break out of my solitude; plus it is a good change of scene. I have lived in the bay area for 5+ years and have been working from different coffee shops consistently. There is a huge work-from-cafe culture here. In every coffee shop you will see people lost in their laptops working on cool new concepts. Let's call them - us - cafe settlers :)

Finding a good coffee shop takes some time and can be a pain. You can get a general idea about coffee shop from Yelp and Google maps. Menu, food pictures, location and hours are pretty accurate on those websites. However there are other information about a cafe that make is suitable for working longer hours on your laptop:

1) Does is have reliable wifi?
Some cafes straight out don't have wifi. A clear signal that they don't want people camping in their cafe on their laptops. Some older cafes have dodgy wifi and it can get pretty annoying. If a cafe has that kind of wifi a few times in a row, I tend to avoid.

2) Does it have a seating area? How busy is it usually? Is it easy for find a seat and a table to work on?
I hate it when I go to a coffee shop all hyped to work and see every seat is taken. This can be a deal breaker if a cafe has too few seating spots. Again, not having enough seats and desks is another sign the cafe owners don't want people to sit there for hours at a time.

3) Does it have enough power outlets?
For many people outlets are not a deal breaker. If you have shiny new laptop and your work involves less process intensive work, you probably don't care much about power outlets. As a more hands-on technical guy, I can deplete my laptop's battery in an hour of code compilation and graphics-intensive work. So I'd rather have a power outlet nearby just in case.

4) Is the general vibe of the cafe work friendly?
Some cafes have everything perfect but attract a different kind of crowd. I've found myself many times working at a cafe when others were watching a sports game and shouting loudly. Other times I've found myself among an older crowd drinking coffee quietly and conversing. Getting awkward "looks" from other customers and baristas doesn't exactly help with focusing on your work, so I stay away from such cafes as well.

If you work from cafes frequently or like to work from cafes occasionally on the weekends, this blog series is for you! I'll write about the cafes I visit in San Francisco area and rate them based on the above factors. Each cafe gets 4 scores for wifi, seating, power outlets and vibe and an overall score. Check out the map page to see the cafes I have visited so far.

If you are new to the concept of working from cafes and are considering it, read my blog post on "Working from coffee shop Etiquette".

Do you have a favorite work coffee shop you want me to include in the blog? Are you curious about a specific cafe and want me to check it out and review it? Let me know in the comments or dm me!

Cheers and happy cafe settling :)