My hubby and I love to hang out in coffee shops and bookstores with cafes.  The usual suspects are Starbucks and Barnes & Noble, but that’s not all!  We love to frequently independent coffee shops and bookstores, as well as small chains.

Not every coffee shop or bookstore cafe is created equally, however.  Here are a few things we look for when selecting a new haunt:

• Comfy seating.  This is one of those must-haves.  You can’t sit around and talk, read, or compute without somewhere comfortable to sit.  My husband prefers regular chairs and tables, but I actually like to sit in a nice cushy armchair with my laptop on my lap.  In other words, we usually have to find a place that has BOTH, so that we’ll both be comfortable hanging out for a while.
• A good selection of drinks.  My husband usually gets regular coffee, but he’s picky about what he drinks, so not all coffee shops or bookstores are good enough!  I, on the other hand, prefer sweeter drinks such as flavored lattes and chai lattes.
• Wifi stickers.  I like to work on my laptop while I drink coffee and eat pastries, so wifi window stickers usually tell me whether a place will give me what I need.  My husband doesn’t need this quite as much, since he only gets online about half the time (he prefers to browse the new books at the bookstores, and read at the coffee shops).  Free wifi is the best, of course, though I have been known to pay for it on occasion!

There’s really nothing quite so nice about doing homework or work at a coffee shop or bookstore.  It’s a nice change of scenery, as I get pretty tired of just seeing my desk at home.  Plus, the coffee and pastries are a nice treat!

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