More about staking out working territory in cafés: Malcom Gladwell takes a light-hearted look at the ambiguity of writing in coffee shops and looks at a few cafés around the world he’s written in over at the Wall Street Journal.

“The problem with writing in coffee shops is that everyone hates the kind of people who write in coffee shops—especially the kind of people who write in coffee shops.”

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Over at The New York Times, a review of a slightly sideways take on literary cafés by nemaworkshop called D’Espresso. Am I wrong to suspect that the coffee won’t be that great? I hope I am—I’ll check it out soon and let you know. Even if the coffee stinks, the design looks worth a macchiato, though it doesn’t strike me as a great place to try to get work done, or even read.

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And lastly, Brooklyn Based reviews some local cafés, with an eye toward workability (but points for good coffee—who can work with sludge burning a hole through their stomach?). I don’t agree 100% with all their ratings, but they’ve reminded me about a couple of places I need to check out.

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Alas, no, I am not writing this at a café. My laptop battery has died and funds are a bit scarce at the moment, so I’m sticking to the old home base for the now (which isn’t so bad—there’s excellent coffee and entertainingly frisky cats gamboling about). I have spent plenty of time as a coffee shop writer, though—I wrote most of my architecture thesis in cafés, and most of the early catasterist posts, too. And maybe some time I’ll even get to design a café—wouldn’t that be fun?

Maybe some other time I’ll tell you more about that, but for now a few words on the in-and-out coffee bar trend. In the article seatless coffee bars (like the Stumptown digs in the Ace Hotel) are compared to Italian espresso bars. Well, in my limited experience, yes and no. Italian espresso bars have universally fantastic coffee, often have a very working-class feel, and are somehow convey the feeling that it’s fine if you want to gulp and run, but it’s also fine if you want to stand around and chat with the policeman on your left or the professor on your right. Partly they manage this trick by being more ubiquitous and better integrated into the life of their surrounding neighborhoods than most (though happily not all) of their American cousins. I think in the US bars have historically been more in that great-good place role, though coffee houses could certainly catch up in many places. To do that, a look at how the best bars work and a look at coffee bars in many places in Europe, is the way to go.

It’s a tricky balance, keeping enough turnover to maintain profitability while making a place welcoming. And none of that matters if the coffee is crap. Much of that (besides the quality of the coffee) is a question of design: materials, proportion, light all speak to us about the expectations and functions of a place. What does your local coffee bar say to you?

That detail—a small wall made of cast coffee cup tops—stuck with me.  I heard one of the architects (I forget now which) talk about it and show a some slides a few years ago, and I haven’t forgotten. I wish I could have seen it.  Maybe I’ll have to recreate it myself some day…