Originally posted on Medium in #Untethered.

“Do you guys have an office?” I’m often asked.

“No. We work out of coffee shops.”

“They don’t mind?”

It’s a question I hear a lot. My company, Workfrom, is built around the premise that awesome things happen when we expand the relationship between vendor and patron. By enabling a community of mobile workers to share their favorite spaces for getting work done outside of the home or office, we spotlight over 1,000 coffee shops around the world.

It’s no surprise that coffee shops are popular destinations for remote workers wanting a place to stay awhile, to work on a wide variety of projects. But is that why entrepreneurs take the risk to open their own coffee shop — to create a communal space where people like us can work alongside strangers for varied lengths of time?

You may be surprised to hear that many coffee shop owners — entrepreneurs just like the ones “setting up shop” in their cafes — do want us there working on our laptops, sketching in notebooks, crafting, meeting others, creating something awesome.

We recently had the pleasure of putting on the first Portland Coworking Week — a collection of discussions and community events bringing together the people who make collaborative spaces and the people who work in them.

We invited three local, independent coffee shop owners to discuss the visible trend of people working from coffee shops. Workfrom CEO Darren Buckner asked “what have you seen in the last 5 years, what effects has that had on your business, where do you see it in the future and how will you be a part of that?”

Owner of Portland’s 24 hour Southeast Grind Kacey Birch confessed that she’s in the relationship business and happens to serve coffee and offer healthy food options for the late-night crowd.

I’ve seen so many projects that have blossomed in a coffee shop. My husband, for example […] found someone just by chitchatting in the cafe and they’re now building net positive green buildings in Tigard that are going above and beyond LEED certification. […] We try and encourage that as much as possibly by creating a space for workers that is very inviting and friendly and encourage people to open up and chit chat and get to know each other.

Southeast Grind owner, Kacey Birch on the connections made at her coffee shop.

How does she and her staff encourage connections? Until recently, it was the only 24 hr coffee shop in the city and very popular in the wee hours with students, writers, programmers and service industry workers. When the place would start to fill, she’d look for a backpack taking up a seat, politely move it and introduce the person in need of a spot with the owner of the bag.

Collin Jones, owner of the popular Crema Coffee and Bakery, shares a similar philosophy and leaves the match making to the community.

When I think about the environment of a coffee house, […] it’s not like at a restaurant where you’ve got these tables that are candle-lit so you don’t have to see anyone else around you. Coffee, a slice of pie, pastries, light sandwiches [are] a social kind of food where people can sit and chat and get to know each other in a casual environment.

It’s a natural fit for people who want to sit down and work somewhere and don’t want to rent out by the hour, partly to cut cost but because you might as well be in your office or in your home [when] the goal is to get out, breathe some fresh air, and have more external stimulation to spark your brain.

Crema owner, Collin Jones on the coffee shop being a natural space for collaboration.

Expanding on the trend, Sam Purvis, cofounder of creative agency Sincerely Truman and Portland’s new Good Coffee, expressed his appreciation of the working environment moving “from the home or the office — a more insular environment — to the public square.”

I’m a big believer that when people are working together in inspiring environments, they do better work on the whole. I’ve always wanted to be involved with companies who sit at the intersection between real human beings and emerging culture. There are a lot of ways you can design physical spaces to create that for people.

Sam Purvis, cofounder of Portland’s Good Coffee on the shift of the working environment to the public square.

When you walk into a Good Coffee, you can tell they’re trying out some of those ways.

But “Jewel,” you’re thinking. Clearly these three fabulous humans can’t speak for every coffee house in business?

Yes and No. Variety is the spice of life. Some cafes are meant to be an ode to an older age and an analog oasis in this increasingly digital world we live in.

One of the many reasons I live and breathe Workfrom is our ability to help differentiate between those spaces that welcome the digital mobile worker from those don’t, so everyone can feel a sense of belonging somewhere.

For more answers to life’s great questions, like “How long is too long (to work from a cafe)?” join Workfrom.co and read our blog.

The post Yes, coffee shops want us working from their spaces. Hear why. appeared first on Jewels.

The opportunity sprang up late (thanks to a post on PDX Startups Switchboard by Meet the Founder’s founder, Kevin Bastien) so we started organizing the same week of the event. Two of those days we were in Seattle for Startup Week, so we were was also limited on the amount of time we had to organize. I started our hunt by calling two, local coworking spaces. They were incredibly helpful, though we ultimately couldn’t arrange a “drop-in” event on such short notice. Had one of us been a monthly member and had weekend access, it’s more likely we could have pulled it off. However, both places also required a rental fee and we couldn’t work out a sponsorship deal in our short amount of time.

So we moved onto looking at the more popular cafes we’ve worked from in our weekly meetups and began filtering on my list of criteria:

1. large group space and ability to break into smaller groups
2. reliable WiFi
3. a variety of food and drink options
4. a variety of seating for folks who can’t sit in one chair all day
5. open later on Saturday
6. free parking, bike parking and accessible from metro transit

This led us to Ford Food & Drink. They allowed us to make a free reservation for their large, group table set in the back of their space. I initially thought we’d only be there for 4-6 hours before folks wanted to migrate, but most of us stayed until closing—between 9-10pm. (I checked in with the staff at mid-day to get a sense if we were welcome to stay and they were very supportive of us staying on.)

Their back space was perfect, as we were able to have a home base that was out of the way of the transient traffic staying for brunch, lunch, snacks, coffee and happy hour. We ran a tab, making it easy for our group to stay fueled and save the establishment on individual credit card fees. At the end of the night when we closed our tab, we saw that we spent as much on everyone’s food and drink as we would have renting a space — so our budget was happy. For folks who didn’t want to stop at 10pm, they could walk a few blocks to Southeast Grind, Portland’s only 24hour coffee shop.

We all agreed to meet back up at Bare Bones cafe the following morning to regroup and submit our team projects. We picked Bare Bones for its brunch, access to power, reliable WiFi, free parking and central location. After some food, coffee and a round of mimosas for all, we found once again that the money we spent was on par with what we’d have had to spend on renting a dedicated space.

One of my personal highlights of hosting the hackathon in cafes was the poetry reading I got to code through. It was a lovely change of pace from the sound of typing and a great shift in energy as the space filled up with folks sharing their passions, ideas and stories. Creativity is contagious — a lovely benefit to sharing spaces.

Check out what the teams all made!

View more photos shared in our Facebook group.

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