A Top Ten List of the Nerd-Friendliest Coffee Shops in Downtown NYC
June 12, 2009
By Liz Suman
Calling all New York City Coffee Nerds! When it comes to getting your work done in New York City sometimes the library or your rickety $50 self-assembled Office Depot desk just doesn’t cut it. In a city with such a high premium on space and quiet, it can be difficult to find a public place to work, let alone build a website, read Moby Dick or write a best-selling memoir.
Whether you’re looking for a decent cup of coffee, a group computing session or just a good place to read a book, here’s a top ten list of the best coffee shops in NYC for lingering with your computer, sketchbook or pad and pencil WITHOUT having to suffer nasty looks from the “I don’t go above 14th Street”-hipster-slash-barista for camping out to write your doctoral thesis over multiple cups of joe.
Most of the following are downtown, open late, offer free wireless and provide generally accessible work environments for New York City nerds.
Think Coffee (Greenwich Village)
The coffee shop’s close proximity to NYU means students and professors dominate the crowd but the result is cozy and studious rather than exclusive and annoying. The café is full of comfy couches, serves wine and cheese and is big enough to find a corner to camp out in for hours. Feel free to stay AS LONG AS YOU LIKE, but beware of noisy evening study sessions and overly enthusiastic late night screenings of obscure Japanese horror films hosted by the latest NYU undergraduate film club. Free wireless.
Housing Works Café (Soho)
A charming dusty old bookstore full of readers, writers and volunteers. All purchases from the café go towards Housing Work Inc.’s AIDS activism efforts. Free wireless.
88 Orchard (Lower East Side)
Orchard is full of gorgeous geeks and mean baristas but the space is open, airy, full of art and by far the best place in the Lower East Side for solitary computing or a casual breakfast meeting over oatmeal and berries. There are mid-day laptop restrictions upstairs but downstairs is a secluded, windowless cave that is the perfect place to camp out with your computer, knit a pair of socks, or privately devour a Harry Potter book in one sitting. Notable menu options include root beer floats and pressed peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Free wireless.
Cake Shop (Lower East Side)
Cake Shop is a good place to check your email from uncomfortable vinyl couches while eating a vegan cupcake and listening to the latest Green Point jam band blaring over the constantly-blaring speaker system. The crowd is young and the vibe is better suited for an interview with the Strokes than writing a poem. Downstairs is a music venue, so don’t expect to get any work done after band begins. Free wireless.
OST (East Village)
A few blocks from Tompkins Square Park, OST is a relatively new European coffee house with good coffee and rows of well-dressed, glasses-wearing hipsters on their Macs. The space is bright and open, baristas are friendly and the café’s pastries are delivered from the Hungarian Pastry Shop each morning. Free wireless.
Hungarian Pastry Shop (Upper West Side/Morningside Heights) The token uptown mention on this list, the Hungarian Pastry Shop is one of those rare institutions that remain functional in spite of their notoriety. It is the epicenter of Upper West Side academia (many a Columbia theses have been written here) and while seats are hard to come by it’s because once you get one, you never have to leave. Bottomless cups of coffee. No wireless but sometimes you can pick up a neighboring signal.
Café Pick Me Up (East Village) Overlooking Tompkins Square Park with picturesque décor and tiny wooden school desks and clover-shaped tables, Café Pick Me Up’s romantic, old-fashioned vibe is perfect for reading, writing, or meeting a friend for coffee. With its close proximity to Tompkins it can get crowded, especially on a nice day, but once you find a seat you can linger and the people/dog-watching is first-rate. Decent coffee and delicious, inexpensive egg sandwiches. Wireless (not free).
McNally Robinson (Nolita)
Enclosed within its independent bookstore counterpart, the McNally Robinson Café is a mini- literary hub featuring sophisticated Nolita-ites and overpriced tea sets. The sophisticated vibe borders on the side of pretentious, but the beautiful and peaceful café literally has the goods to back it up (Fresh Balthazar pastries are delivered daily). Check the website for author readings. Free wireless.
Aroma Espresso Bar (Soho)
Aroma isn’t as peaceful as the others on this list but what it lacks in ambience it makes up for in convenience. Full of flashy black, red and white décor and centrally located on Houston, it’s a trap for tourists but the perfect place to grab an espresso and camp out anonymously with a computer and headphones. Grab a barstool facing the street for top of the line European runway model watching. Free Wireless.
Cocoa Bar (Lower East Side)
Cocoa Bar is a sleek, modern outpost on Clinton Street (one of the coolest streets in New York) with lots of space. The café’s menu revolves around gourmet chocolate and wine pairings but its nighttime-friendly theme makes it a quiet and often empty place to work alone during the day. Free wireless.
P.S. Thanks to Richard for snapping "Think Coffee and Destroy" street art, 8th Ave.
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I can vouch for the good old cuppa and oatmeal and berries at 88 Orchard, can't wait to try the rest.
Posted by: Jane | June 12, 2009 at 07:38 PM
Cafe Pick Me Up gets my vote as #1 despite the non-free wireless. I love drinking coffee out of an actual ceramic mug while enjoying a good book.
Posted by: Megan Baker | June 12, 2009 at 02:10 PM
Fabulous list. Now I have to get my laptop fixed and I'm good to go. Might I add that 88 Orchards has delicious hot chocolate.
Posted by: Joanna | June 12, 2009 at 11:14 AM