You’ve read Post#1, of course. So let’s get right down to the reviews of where to go for wifi in T.O.

Wifi Paradise

Linux Caffé
326 Harbord Street (at Grace)

Linux Caffé is hands-down, the most laptop friendly coffee joint that I have ever come across in Toronto, Montreal, or elsewhere. Perhaps that’s not surprising, with a name like Linux Caffé. But even Café π in Montreal, which has high geek cred (chess boards and all) doesn’t follow through the way Linux does. Not only is free wireless available, but no matter where you’re seated an extension cord or power bar is within reach for refueling. Laptop rentals are also an option at the reasonable rate of $3 for the first hour and $1 for each additional hour.

I’m not a programmer, but if I were, I’d particularly appreciate the printed resources on hand: back issues of Linux Journal, books on code theory, histories of hacking, programming certification study guides, not to mention the parade of acronyms—FreeBSD, UNIX, PHP, MySQL, SOAP, GNU, XML, SGML—on the spines of myriad other volumes. The first time I came here, I walked in on a presentation on Python and Oracle and shared the back section of the café with the handful of participants, listening in on the Q&A.

Linux also has the virtuous goal of striving to be the greenest café in the neighbourhood. They’ve instituted practices like encouraging customers to bring their own mugs by charging a premium on take-away cups.

IN A NUTSHELL…

Caffeine: Ideal organic coffee, variety of teas, astoundingly delicious hot chocolate
Wifi situation: free wireless and plenty of power bars to recharge a dying laptop
Snacks: vegan brownies, trail mix, breakfast and sandwiches
Sounds: highly variable, totally unpredictable, always wonderful. David Bowie to Johnny Cash to Portishead. Fairly loud volume.
Seats: some outdoor seating, tables/chairs, high counters/stools
Crowd: nerds and neighbours

Tequila Bookworm Café and Books
490 Queen Street West (east of Bathurst)

I love the feel of this place: sophisticated but not too pretentious. Haven’t had the chance to visit more than once but I definitely recommend checking it out.

IN A NUTSHELL…

Wifi situation: free wireless access (weekdays only)
Tastes: cappuccino, not too strong, with delicious foam; bar; desserts
Sounds: mostly mellow: Sondre Lerche, Sufjan Stevens, Dave Matthews
Seats: tables/chairs, sofa/coffee table, outdoor patio

Gladstone Hotel, Melody Bar
1214 Queen Street West (east of Dufferin at Gladstone)

The first floor of the Gladstone has two main areas open to the public: Melody Bar and the Ballroom Café. The Café was full the afternoon of our visit, so we opted for the Melody Bar. It offers the same menu and wifi access as the café across the lobby, with a grungier, more laid back feel–think Parkdale pre-gentrification.

IN A NUTSHELL…

Wifi situation: free, a few outlets to recharge the battery
Tastes: brunch menu, baked goods
Sounds: live music – country when we were there
Seats: big comfy booths
Crowd: old folks and 30-something hipsters (could it have been the country?)

In a pinch…

Aroma Espresso Bar
500 Bloor Street West (east of Bathurst)

Having passed by Aroma several times on jaunts through the Annex, I was excited to spend a couple of hours there on the laptop, getting some work done. So I was particularly disappointed to find that despite its smooth looks and advertised wifi, it was not the sort of place one would feel comfortable spending more than 30 minutes to an hour online.

There seemed to be only one working outlet for plugging in a laptop, the others having been deliberately disabled. In other words, although free wireless access is provided to all paying customers—a username and password is printed on every receipt at time of purchase, seemingly inviting everyone to make use of it—one easily senses it is possible to overstay the welcome.

IN A NUTSHELL…

Wifi situation: free. username and password automatically printed on sales receipt
Sounds: yuppie exotica: Buddha-Bar-style instrumentals, bossa nova
Tastes: espresso, alfajores (argentinian cookies), full menu
Pros: nice coffee presentation and locale decor
Cons: Bob Marley tunes watered down à la Muzak, the feeling of having to rush internet use.

Rice Bar
319 Augusta Avenue (in Kensington Market)

I tried, but couldn’t bring myself to use the free wifi at Rice Bar. It was too pretty, there were too many candles and too many people were there on dates (Maybe. Or maybe they were just people not using wifi. Either way, you don’t want to be the one person responsible for ruining the mood.)

I read a book instead.

Most likely, my mistake was going to Rice Bar after dark. Worth a daytime visit to see how different the environment might be…

Just the Caffeine

Ideal Coffee
162 Ossington Avenue (south of Dundas)

Spending time at Ideal Coffee feels very much like hanging out in a grad student lounge; the mismatched coffee cups, murals, and sparse vintage furnishings give it a similar laid-back feel. Customers order ground organic coffee by the pound, read the paper, or bury their noses in books and coursepacks. On a Sunday afternoon, it was dead quiet though packed with people reading, feet propped comfortably on chairs or an ottoman, or curled up in an armchair. You get the sense it is perfectly acceptable to stay as long as you wish.

IN A NUTSHELL…

Wifi Situation: currently no wifi
Sounds: jazzy instrumentals
Tastes: organic americanos
Crowd: low-key locals, students and professionals

Moonbeam Coffee Company
30 St. Andrew Street (in Kensington Market)

I’m not sure whether wifi is available at Moonbeam. (Apologies for not verifying before posting– if anyone knows, please leave a comment.) I’ve stopped in on a couple of occasions with friends, but never stayed longer than an hour or so, and I’ve never come with my laptop. The vast majority of customers seated, however, looked very comfy in their seats, and appeared to be there for the long-haul. I spotted: an actor going over a script, a PhD student doing his readings, and an ink artist completing a portrait, pen in one hand, magnifying glass in the other. Linux wins in my books by fostering the wifi crowd, but Moonbeam has the overall atmosphere to beat. If I didn’t need wireless and lived closer to it, this is where I would spend much of my free time.

(Note: Clearly this only covers a minute section of the downtown. Feel free to contribute info and thoughts on other wifi spots and neat cafés in other areas of Toronto– it’s the only way to build a greater resource on the subject!)

In Montreal:

• Café π, 4127, boulevard St.-Laurent

In Toronto:

• Linux Caffé, 326 Harbord Street
• Tequila Bookworm Café and Books, 490 Queen Street West
• Gladstone Hotel—Melody Bar and Ballroom Café, 1214 Queen Street West
  
• Aroma Espresso Bar, 500 Bloor Street West
• Rice Bar, 319 Augusta Avenue
• Ideal Coffee, 162 Ossington Avenue
• Moonbeam Coffee Company, 30 St. Andrew Street

For over a year, Salon B bibliocafé, a café/library/art gallery on St. Laurent Blvd. in Montreal served as my home office away from home. Though the concept behind that particular café is deserving of a separate post (the café is located above, and affiliated with, a funeral home– yessir, and a very chi chi one at that), what I liked about it was the fact that you could stay for hours without being shooed out or stared down, the music (sometimes Cirque du Soleil, sometimes Nancy Sinatra duets), and the little piece of chocolate or candy that accompanied my cappuccinos. Maybe I was missing the larger point of this controversial café’s raison d’être but to me it was simply a great place to work, with big windows, delicious paninis, and very friendly staff. Free wireless access was the icing on the cake.

Since acquiring a laptop last year, wireless is no longer the icing; very often, it’s the cake. I’ve added Internet access to the mental list of must-haves—proximity to home, good cappuccinos, a relaxed atmosphere and so forth—that help me to choose one coffee shop over another. By ‘Internet access’ I mean free access, of course. Sorry, Starbucks/Second Cup.

Unfortunately, getting coffee and free wifi in Toronto has proven surprisingly difficult. Maybe I’m not looking in the right places. But in the downtown-centre/west core, say Annex-to-Queen-West, I have found very few spots of which I would gladly become a regular. Lots of otherwise great cafés don’t offer wireless (though occasionally one can pick up stray signals). I have also come across several locales that advertise free internet access, but that in various ways make it inconvenient or uncomfortable to actually use it.

In contrast, Montreal is bursting with free hotspots. My impression is that providing free wifi is seen (correctly, in my view and given my personal habits) as a way to draw customers in, even if they do stay a little longer than owners would like. The Île Sans Fil project has done a lot to encourage downtown establishments (including Salon B) to offer free wireless access on their premises. Java U on St.-Denis and Café République on ave. Bernard are just two locales that even provide customers with a way of accessing the Internet without laptops—iGotcha Media’s ‘webpads,’ ad-sponsored touchscreen units great for checking email and such. (A full list of Montreal locations offering these webpads is available here.)

Montreal boasts 147 Île Sans Fil spots and 61 iGotcha webpad locations. That’s far more free access points than we appear to have in Toronto, which we all know is the bigger city. (A list of 39 free wifi hotspots is provided here by Wireless Toronto, a non-profit group that works to improve wireless access as a community-building initiative. A total of 85 hotspots are listed in this directory, some of which require a credit card for use.)

I can only guess that this situation stems from T.O. café owners’ reluctance to risk having their unique atmosphere sabotaged by hordes of poor students buying a tea and staying 5 hours glued to their computer screens, taking up space. An understandable fear, but to those who still think along these lines, I would offer as a counter-example Montreal’s Le Dépanneur Café, located in Mile End. At this gorgeous café where live music, kitschy decor and bottled soda are the norm, ethernet Internet access is offered for three laptops in the back on a first come, first serve basis. It’s the perfect mix of providing customers with the access they want and need and maintaining the unique ambiance of the café which is the reason Dépanneur is so popular in the first place. Why couldn’t such a concept work in Toronto?

Perhaps the apparent lack of wifi-friendly cafés in our city versus in Montreal is more indicative of the centralization of free wireless efforts in that city than of any particular ill will on the part of Toronto café owners. And on the plus side, it does seem that more T.O. establishments offer free wireless of their own accord rather than through companies like iGotcha, which is praise-worthy in that it is also more often advertising-free.

My next post won’t be so ‘Montreal rocks, T.O. stinks’. Despite the duds, my search for wifi-friendly cafés in downtown Toronto did yield a few gems. I’ll have reviews of these and some wifi-less but still neat coffee shops I stumbled upon over the past few weeks. Stay tuned—their identities revealed in Caffeine & Wireless, Post #2.

In Montreal:

• Salon B bibliocafé | 4231, boulevard St.-Laurent
• Java U | 4065, rue St.-Denis & other locations in Montreal
• Café République | 1051, rue Bernard & other locations in Montreal
• Le Dépanneur Café | 206, rue Bernard