My friend and I were having a conversation about cafés. Yes, I love them, but my pocket doesn’t lol. And my point was how cafés is the best place to find yourself inspired and feel comfortable.
My experience with a café started in a Starbucks in my city in Japan. Just a little one where I used to go every Saturday morning and stay until the afternoon. Or Some other Saturday, I would just stay until the mall closed. The staff was friendly, they would give to students cinnamon cake when they are about to close the shop. Besides, you would find a lot of undergraduate students in the café, either hanging out or having a group study.
More i was going to cafes, more I became aware of the difference between them. I realized that Starbucks was into personalization and branding. They had their own term that you won’t Find anywhere else. Besides, the name was something, more it is fancy and peculiar ; better it is.
But in other cafe ; you don’t Have that much personalization. For example after Starbucks in japan, my favorite one is Tullys. They have this latte with honey on it that keep sugar out of sight. No fancy name for their “Honey Latte” you already know what it is. I remember spending hours in the cafe streaming my shows or reading.
But they have a selling point. The experience of the environment. You find cozy space with good music in Tully’s. They even have sofa (just like in Central Perk). The best is their smoking area, where you can stay and enjoy your coffee.
I can even compare Tully’s to à café i have been in japan. In term of accommodation that-cafe-I-forgot-the-name is nothing compare to tullys. It was all table and chair. Nothing else.
Farther, there is a cafe called Saint Marc, it has a Vietnamese Coffee Latte (that one is great). Their accommodations consists of wooden tables and chairs. You might feel like in a movie of old time. I think they wanted to recreate something frenchie.
But let’s go somewhere else. In Dakar, there is this cafe… I thought for a long time was a home interior design shop (lol). It is called “Lulu cafe” but when you see the entrance it is written “Lulu Home Interior” … so you might understand why I thought it to be a home interior design shop.
Lulu is typically among the hype place (for hipster) in dakar. I think they have been aware that people also go there to work, so they place a long table at the entrance. Then when you go farther, you can see that the design is different, it is just like entering in your grandma house – if she had notion in interior design prior to the 2000s – and there are sofas everywhere and table.
Then you have that place behind the cafe that is open in the air, with wide table where people can definitely hangout if the inside is full. The space look like the backyard of a house. I think that they wanted to make the cafe really looking like a (grandma) house. And they succeed.
In the end, I know that my community would ask me “what about Layu Café”? Well, I’ll talk about them in my next article. Meanwhile, don’t hesitate to tell me about your favorite cafe.
