ribble's Quest: Day 2

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Today was the second day in my quest to find New York's next great writer's cafe, and I'm starting to realize just how surreal this little mission is.

It's not just that I'm becoming a caffeine-powered superhero. Because I'm moving from neighborhood to neighborhood, stopping at unfamiliar places and writing in each one, I'm skipping between locations in real New York while writing about events that I'm creating set in a parallel universe New York. Like today I wrote about a scene where a woman's tricked in to stepping out in to traffic in mid-town and has her neck snapped by a taxi. Then I left the library and tried to walk to the subway. Do you have any idea how disorienting that was?

Suggestions for where to find the next great writer's cafe seem to focus on the Village and Williamsburg. Yesterday and today I went to three coffee spots in Williamsburg - Gimme Coffee, Oslo Coffee, and The Atlas Cafe.


These aren't reviews in the normal sense, because I'm looking for something very specific. That said, Atlas Cafe was the clear winner. It looked like a pretty modest place when I first walked in, much smaller than Tea Lounge and Hungarian Pastry Shop, but as soon as I got my mug of coffee and started writing I knew it was going in my regular rotation.

First, the coffee was excellent. Good, strong, kick in the backside brew, served in a real mug because paper cups are for pussies.

Next, there were enough tables that two more people could have come in with their laptops and started writing, so I didn't need to feel guilty about staying as long as I liked.

Then all the other details were perfect. Music was provided but could be safely ignored, refills on coffee were 50 cents, there was free internet that I didn't have to talk to anyone to use, plus it's open late.

Finally, everyone there was working on a laptop. It was the perfect anonymous writing experience. The only problem was there wasn't any food to speak of, but who needs to eat when you're full of coffee and ideals? Oh, and the decaf tasted like swill, but that was my own fault for ordering it.


As writing cafes, the other two didn't cut it. Oslo Coffee was a perfectly nice local coffee joint where you could read a paper - virtuous in its own way, but not a writer's cafe.

Gimme Coffee had internet but only two or three booths. There was nowhere to hide from the constant foot traffic coming in and out of the damn place. The kitchen was loud and the girls there were chatting and listening to NPR. This wasn't a writer's cafe - it was an airport departure lounge grab-and-dash coffee joint.

Tomorrow I'm hitting three places in the Village, which should just leave one straggler on the Upper East Side and a place I missed in Williamsburg. Sleep well, America. I'll join you in bed as soon as the caffeine wears off.

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