Lattes and laptops

Atmosphere and community are among the perks for the local novelists who use coffee shops as their personal literary salons.

BY CHRIS HEWITT

PIONEER PRESS

JOE ROSSI/Pioneer Press

[Photo: Theresa Alberti works on a piece of her fiction at the Blue Moon Coffee Shop on Lake Street in Minneapolis.]

Walk into any Twin Cities coffeehouse, and you expect to smell beans roasting and hear Norah Jones tiptoeing out of the speakers. But you might not expect to see murder being acted out by a laptop-wielding novelist.

Coffee shops all over the Twin Cities are morphing into literary salons, jammed with so many people banging away on computers that it's a struggle to get to the half-and-half. Nina's in St. Paul has not only been the birthplace of several books and provided a cozy nook for Garrison Keillor to work on his newspaper column, but it also sponsors author readings. The Coffee Gallery at the Open Book literary center in Minneapolis keeps a dictionary on hand for caffeinated wordsmiths. And Blue Moon, in Minneapolis, hosts get-togethers where dozens of budding novelists compete to see who can write the biggest chunk of a book on deadline.

On the most basic level, writers love coffee shops because they are an office-away-from-home. Folks who are writing books head to the coffeehouse to escape dishes that need washing, kids who need Candylanding and bread dough that needs kneading. For writers with no home office, the coffee shop provides the space and the java.

"I have a 6-year-old son who is very adorable and very hyper, and my husband works from home full time, so he uses that office, like, 14 hours a day," says Sharyn Morrow, 32, of St. Paul, who is working on a novel about the relationship between a woman and her mother. "I do some writing in my living room, but coffee shops tend to be more distraction-free."

Getting away from most of it all is also the lure for Theresa Alberti, 41, of Minneapolis, who has been hanging in coffee shops since she was a University of Minnesota student 20 years ago. Then and now, she says, coffee shops always motivated her because they are "a place where you felt like you were doing something better or more special than just staying in your dorm. It's a home-away-from-home. It's comfortable, but it gets you away from the kids and the clutter and the other stuff. I don't do the wireless thing, so when I'm in a coffee shop, I can't even get e-mail."

Many novelists avoid places with wireless Internet, afraid they'll write a paragraph or two but then get distracted and start ordering stuff from the J.Crew Web site or Googling brownie recipes. But wireless isn't the only factor. There are as many reasons to choose one coffeehouse over another as there are cutesy names for South American roasts.

THE COMFORT FACTOR

Morrow favors Caffeto in Uptown because it's owned by friends, and she feels comfortable chilling there for hours.

Judith Yates Borger, a former Pioneer Press reporter who is working on the third mystery in a series, swears by the Dunn Bros. in Minneapolis' Linden Hills neighborhood. She's the one who enlisted a fellow coffee drinker to figure out what bashing someone over the head with a log would look like.

St. Paul writer Suzy Rogers likes to mix it up — although, like a secret agent or killer on the lam, wherever she goes, she sits with her back to the wall (so no one can read her screen).

"I have different places for different things. When I am writing fantasy, the Dunn Bros. on Grand is good," says Rogers, 48, who is working on the second book in a fantasy series called "The Sorcerers Series." "It has a lot against it — it tends to get crowded, the tables are dinky — but I like the people. If you need a spare character, they have any number of elves and sprites working there. And the regular clientele includes gnomes and this guy who is a court jester type. You can just look around and start describing someone."

Rogers used to work at Amore in St. Paul.

"I wrote almost all of my first novel there, and the place had a lot to do with it. They had this really original decor with this Chagall-like mural on the wall. It was magical, and I could soak up the atmosphere, crouching over my cappuccino, and think, 'What happens next?' " Rogers remembers. But then, the place was redecorated: "They had painted it government-issue green, the mural was gone, and the magic wasn't there anymore."

She still likes Blue Moon, which has become a Mecca for novelists for a variety of reasons: "In addition to the purely practical stuff — Can I get a table? Is there parking? How many annoying people with cell phones are there? — there are intangibles, and Blue Moon is a place I could go later in the evening after a full day's work, when I was totally tired and uninspired, and dredge up 500 words by sheer force."

But her current fave is Cahoots in St. Paul. "It's really warm and cozy, and it's a very individual kind of place, kind of funky, in an old storefront with tin ceilings. And really strong coffee. That's one place I go if I need a strong turbo-charge."

IT'S THE COFFEE, TOO

Oh, yeah. Coffee. It's generally the last thing coffee-shop novelists mention when discussing venues, but it is a factor.

"I like good lighting — windows and some daylight coming in is nice," says Alberti. "I like it to have tables that aren't real small or crowded together, comfortable seating. I like a variety of seats — if you can sit in an armchair in the back or at a table. And they have to have good coffee. I like Blue Moon. It's just a very homey place, and I like that they serve fair-trade coffee and that it's strong."

Proprietors like to hear that writers who use their coffee shops do actually order a cup or two. Peter Bauer, a barista at Nina's, says, "It definitely adds to the ambience" to have creative types lurking about. But being able to craft a diamond-etched sentence does not excuse coffee-shop writers from laying down some cash occasionally.

"I am aware of who's here and how long they've been here," says Cathy Hauser, who owns Amore in St. Paul. "I have spoken to people if they're just sitting there and not buying anything. I tell them this is a service I provide to customers, and I am not shy about asking someone to actually be a customer."

Hauser, whose customers have given her copies of books written in her shop, says she loves having writers around. "If August Wilson could sit at that bar on Dale and write his plays, why not have an author pen a book here?" she says of the "Fences" playwright who worked at a variety of bars and coffee shops in St. Paul. But what should the rent on a coffee-shop chair be? One cup an hour? Two?

"I feel pretty comfortable buying a beverage and a baked good and milking it for a few hours. And I tip well. I always tip well," says Morrow, estimating she might leave $3 on a three-buck bill. She also tries not to become too familiar a face: "I don't tend to go to the same coffee shop over and over again in the same week. I kind of vary it, because I don't want to be That Creepy Lady Who Always Sits in That Corner."

HOW ABOUT A REFILL?

Alberti thinks it's important to pay attention to what kind of coffee shop it is. She steers clear of chains and says, "If it's one of those coffee shops that is more of a place that serves meals, then I probably wouldn't go in and just buy a cup of coffee. I'd feel like I was taking up a table that could be bringing in more money. But if it's a coffee shop that just has coffee and snacks, then I don't worry about it too much."

Borger will milk the same cup of Joe at her favorite Dunn Bros. for two or three hours, so "they're not making any money on me." But she says the employees don't seem to mind: "They're really friendly, and they usually know what I want before I order it."

While many writers head to Caffeineland to get away from people, Borger goes there to find them. "I need to have people around, mostly just for the human contact," says Borger, the former reporter who likens the social aspect of coffee shops to newsrooms she has worked in. Except, she says, the coffee is better, there's music and there are fewer nasty stares.

Her Dunn Bros. sometimes resembles an ad hoc writer's group, with as many as a dozen people slaving over hot computers. "It's social, but it's not overbearing. If you want to work, you stick your head in the computer," says Borger, who adds that her coffee colleagues know what she's working on and will often ask, "Have you killed anybody today?"

She and her fellow writers get involved in each others' projects, reading sentences aloud or helping with research. One of Borger's coffee-shop pals does research for her online, and she and another novelist "sometimes will e-mail things back and forth to each other. Which is funny, because we're sitting next to each other on the same couch, but we're e-mailing each other."

FACES IN THE CROWD

There's also a fair amount of would-you-watch-my-laptop-while-I-go-the-restroom action. Aside from that, though, coffee-shop novelists vary on how much they want to interact with their fellow writers.

"I can't shut up," says Morrow, who likes to chat with others and is happy to read their work but keeps her writing private. Alberti also likes to keep to herself.

"On occasion, you'll find yourself sitting next to people who are really animated, or maybe the topic they're talking about is interesting. That can be annoying and fascinating," she says. "It may take you away from your writing, but it can be like a character study."

Rogers worries less about what other people are doing than her own behavior.

"I sometimes wonder if I'm making funny expressions while I write," she says. "I can feel myself frowning or smiling, and there are stages when I walk around a lot. That's not a coffeehouse stage of writing. It's better to stay home when I get a little stuck or need to kick-start something, because that involves walking around a lot and mumbling. Things like that tend to get you labeled schizophrenic."

She has found that coffee shops tend to be better places for hammering out first drafts, but frenzied rewriting and reworking is better left at home, where she doesn't have to worry about other people. On the other hand, those other people should definitely worry about Rogers and her fellow coffee-shop novelists.

"Sometimes, I can't work on my own stuff because there are too many people around, so I'll practice writing dialogue by taking down whatever they're saying around me," says Alberti.

Rogers does the same, and warns, "The people who are annoying and loud in coffee shops — they should watch out. They might end up in somebody's book someday."

Chris Hewitt can be reached at chewitt@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5552.

Suzy Rogers sips coffee as she works on her eighth novel at Cahoots Coffee Bar on Selby Avenue in St. Paul.

Sharyn Morrow likes to work at the Caffeto Coffe Shop in Minneapolis because it is owned by friends, and she feels comfortable staying there for hours.

Where to find them

Here's where to find the St. Paul coffee shops mentioned in the accompanying stories.

Amore Coffee

917 Grand Ave.

651-222-6770

www.amore coffee.com

Aromas Art House Cafe

488 N. Robert St.

651-298-0770

Black Dog Cafe

308 Prince St.

651-228-9274

www.blackdog stpaul.com

Blondies Cafe

454 S. Snelling Ave.

651-204-0152

www.blondies cafe.com

Blue Cat Coffee & Tea

151 Cesar Chavez St.

651-291-7676

Brewberry's Coffee Place

475 S. Fairview Ave.

651-699-1117

Cahoots Coffee Bar

1562 Selby Ave.

651-644-6778

Cosmic's Coffee

189 N. Snelling Ave.

651-645-0106

http://cosmiccharlies00.tripod.com

Dunn Bros. Grand Avenue

1569 Grand Ave.

651-699-2636

www.dunnbros grand.com

Ginkgo Coffeehouse

721 N. Snelling Ave.

651-645-2647

www.ginkgo coffee.com

Golden Thyme Coffee Cafe

921 Selby Ave.

651-645-1340

Home Video Espresso Bar

80 N. Snelling Ave.

651-646-4771

J&S Bean Factory

1518 Randolph Ave.

651-699-7788

Nina's Coffee Cafe

165 N. Western Ave.

651-292-9816

Sisu Coffee and Tea

649 S. Snelling Ave.

651-695-1960

Swede Hollow Cafe*

725 E. Seventh St.

651-776-8810

www.swede hollowcafe.com

White Rock Coffee Roasters

769 S. Cleveland Ave.

651-699-5448

www.whiterock coffee.com

Related Article:

Cream? Sugar? Wi-Fi? Local coffee shops pick up on trend

BY JULIO OJEDA-ZAPATA

Pioneer Press

When June Berkowitz took over Nina's Coffee Cafe in February 2005, her customers asked her one question again and again: "When are you getting Wi-Fi?"

Berkowitz knew about wireless computer networks, a popular feature at chain coffee shops catering to laptop users who like to check e-mail and surf the Internet while sipping their macchiatos. But, like other independent cafes in St. Paul, Nina's in the Summit Hill neighborhood had been slow to embrace the technology.

Eventually, though, she gave in and cautiously deployed free Wi-Fi last year. Almost at once, Nina's changed — and not always for the better. One side of the cafe's back room became a sort of laptop alley, with a half dozen or so computer users often deployed side by side at tables while gazing intently at their screens.

At times, laptop-less customers had to be turned away because all the tables were taken. So Berkowitz posted a sign: Nina's is like a city bus. Just because someone is next to an empty chair, it doesn't mean that chair is unavailable.

Now all is well, for the most part. Laptop users don't seem to mind sharing, Berkowitz says, and they appear to coexist harmoniously with other clients, such as the women who pop in after swimming classes at the nearby YWCA.

WI-FI TRAILBLAZERS

Nina's is not alone. In recent months, a slew of St. Paul cafe owners have also tried to one-up chain coffee shops that charge for Wi-Fi service by offering the technology for free — echoing a nationwide trend.

Cafes and restaurants are the fastest-growing kind of public Wi-Fi "hotspot," ahead of hotels and other public places, according to recent figures from the JiWire online directory of Wi-Fi locations.

"U.S. coffee shops that don't have Wi-Fi are definitely in the minority," says Glenn Fleishman, editor of the Wi-Fi Networking News blog. Not having Wi-Fi "is more of a political or sociological statement than a business statement" these days, he says.

Fleishman made national headlines last year when he wrote about a Seattle-area coffee shop that turned off Wi-Fi on weekends due to a crush of table-grabbing laptop users. He later found other coffee shops with similar approaches and says Wi-Fi-usage policies are among the hottest topics among cafe owners.

But in St. Paul, the technology seems to have come in mostly without a ripple, despite initial concerns. This has helped make St. Paul a free-Wi-Fi haven in a wireless wave that began building slowly, years ago, with a handful of pioneering city cafes.

Some, such as the Dunn Bros. Coffee shop in downtown St. Paul, offered free Wi-Fi as early as 2002. The geeky Cosmic's Coffee near Selby and North Snelling avenues added Wi-Fi about two years ago to complement its already-established Internet and gaming terminals. The nearby Cahoots Coffee Bar also installed Wi-Fi about two years ago, while White Rock Coffee Roasters in Highland Park has offered wireless access for more than three years.

J&S Bean Factory near Randolph and South Snelling avenues got hip to Wi-Fi early, too, thanks to a techie client who set up a wireless transmitter, says owner Steve VandeWater. He partly pays for the 3-year-old network with the proceeds from a donation box.

"It's worked out pretty well," VandeWater says.

Then, in an accelerating surge of Wi-Fi activity in the past year or so, even once-reluctant cafe owners began switching on wireless routers and publicizing Wi-Fi service en masse.

Cathy Hauser was insistent on providing Wi-Fi when she took over Amore Coffee on Grand Avenue in St. Paul's Crocus Hill area just over a year ago, but she had to sway a skeptical partner, who "was worried that people would come in and drain our resources, but we wouldn't get the payback," Hauser says. That hasn't been a problem.

Sisu Coffee and Tea on South Snelling Avenue began offering no-cost wireless after being approached by a tech firm offering to set up a for-a-fee network. Charging for wireless "felt sort of silly to us," co-owner Lori Luchsinger says.

The Golden Thyme Coffee Cafe on Selby Avenue charged for Wi-Fi at one point and then moved to free wireless. "People (had) tended to stay home to check e-mail," co-owner Mychael Wright says.

A 'SOCIAL CONTRACT'

The Black Dog Cafe in downtown St. Paul's Lowertown district set up its wireless last summer after customers reported already finding a network — their laptops really were detecting nearby Wi-Fi traffic. The store's three co-owners had a growing incentive to offer Wi-Fi service because they also needed to get online at the shop.

Now, when a new St. Paul coffee shop comes on the scene, Wi-Fi at the cafe is pretty much a given.

When two couples opened Blondies Cafe at Randolph and South Snelling avenues just over a year ago, the tech-savvy husbands put in wireless from the get-go. Ditto for the months-old Aromas Art House Cafe in downtown St. Paul, where Wi-Fi complements other high-tech amenities, such as projection gear for showing homegrown indie films.

"Wi-Fi is a no-brainer," says Aromas owner Rick Berdahl.

The Cesar Chavez Street main drag on St. Paul's West Side had been known more for Latin American restaurants and supermarkets than coffee service until Mary Vasquez opened Blue Cat Coffee & Tea last June. Wi-Fi debuted there last month.

"There's a big need for wireless on the West Side," Vasquez says.

But not every independent java joint in the city has raced to offer Wi-Fi. On East Seventh Street near downtown, the tiny Swede Hollow Cafe has no plans for a wireless network. Owner Wes Linstrom fears overcrowding, and he regards Wi-Fi use in cafes as a largely nocturnal activity — his cafe closes at 3 p.m.

"If I do open in the evening," Linstrom says, "I might consider it."

Julio Ojeda-Zapata can be reached at jojeda@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5467. For more personal technology on the Web or via RSS, go to TwinCities.com and click "Business," then "Personal Tech."