The BEST List

Best place to meet for lunch November 2009:

SOHO South Cafe

Best place to work November 2009:

Starbucks on Montgomery

REVIEWS
Metro Coffee House and bubble tea
MLK BLVD — CLOSED summer 2009

Soho South Cafe
12 West Liberty St.

Nice, open space with full menu, art on display and other stuff. Space is a renovated garage. Excellent place for lunch meetings.

Cafe Mucha
202 Broughton St.

Good pastries and decent coffee. Relaxed atmosphere downtown. Good place for downtown meetings.

Sentient Bean
13 E. Park Ave.

The Bean is one of the jewels of downtown, with great pastries and vegetarian fare in a warm, eclectic atmosphere. This is a good place to plan a revolution or to tweak your divs. Often, the Bean will have film showings and performances at its stage so keep an eye on the calendar to attend or avoid — you will be charged or evicted from the main space if the event has a fee. The Bean was founded by ladies who valued the public space as a brewing pot for community and green living. Their coffee is fair trade and organic. The Bean sits at the edge of Forsyth Park, which is good to have if you need to pace or if you brought your dog along. The Bean closes at 10 PM and opens at 7:30 am (yeah right, like you’ll ever get up that early).

Tradewinds on Wilmington
107 Charlotte Dr, #F

Tradewinds is the heavyweight on iced drinks with a fully armed and operational ice cream bar. Just think about it: sugar,coffee, coffee, sugar, ya ya yah! You’ll be like that perverse cartoon weasel in no time, zipping around like your wireless card hunting a wi-fi connection. There’s one! And you get the password for it if you buy more sweet and caffeinated stuff. Nice place to hide and rule the world from the coveted tiki corner if you’re lucky.

Clary’s on Habersham and Clary’s on Abercorn

4330 Habersham St.

and

404 Abercorn St (next to big tower)

Clary’s has a full breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner menu and is the only place in town where you can order a cherry phosphate from a traditional soda fountain. The service is friendly and they are trying to encourage more telecommuters to hang around with wi-fi. It’s kindof intimidating and hard to work during their busy lunch hour and breakfast. But after lunch you have the place to yourself until around 5 or so.

Firefly
321 Habersham St.

Ahh the firefly. The name conjures an innocent childhood chasing bioluminescent insects and confining them in a jar. The atmosphere here is enchanting. It sits before Troop Square in the lovely downtown of our fair city. The main dining area is slightly below ground and there are also tables outside. This is our best place to meet for lunch. The menu and the atmosphere are great. You see people with their laptops during the lunch hour but you don’t see a lot of them sticking around. There is no wi-fi and the place gets busy on and off with tourists.

Christy’s Espresso on Eisenhower
400 Abercorn EXT # 904

No wi-fi but a good place to work if you’ve got Verizon Broadband. It’s right next to the Verizon store. Delicious treats and decent coffee. Mostly caters to office people around the area.

Savannah Bagel Cafe on Wilmington Island
444 Johnny Mercer Blvd

No wi-fi. Decent coffee and drinks and choice of bagels, sandwiches and pastries. Bagels made fresh every morning so if you like variety get there early. Art on display and for sale. Somewhat awkward for telecommuting but not bad to grab lunch and work an hour or two. Closes at 2 pm.

Carpe Vas (Abercorn and Liberty)
313 Abercorn St. (near Lafayette Square)

Built in a restored home in historic downtown. Classy atmosphere, limited selections but wi-fi if you ask for the PW. Don’t go upstairs the owners live there. Cozy place to work if you’re ok with having to feed the meters during the week or you have good parking somewhere. Tourists will walk in and out, though so be prepared to be talked at, about or with.

Franchise — these don’t need any bump but when you need to vanish into a franchise it’s better than nothing

Starbucks charges for WiFi through AT&T . If you have an AT&T mobile account it’s free for the mobile phones but not your laptop, those cheap bahstards.  Still ya gotta hand it to them, the atmosphere is usually pleasant or tolerable and there is a good variety of coffee and other stuff. Lucky for me I have a cellular Broadband card.

Starbucks on Montgomery and Abercorn

This is a fairly large sized facility that stays busy with many students from Armstrong U and South University as well as your telecommuters and business types. Scramble for that plug or bring a multi-plug connector because there are only 2 socket panels in this place (4 plugs). As always internet access is via AT&T wi fi hot spot arrangement.

Starbucks in Publix shopping center on North Abercorn

Starbucks in Barnes and Noble, Oglethorpe Mall

Starbucks in Oglethorpe Mall (yes there are 2 in that mall)

Starbucks at Kroger, Wilmington Island

Actually not bad. It’s not too far from Tybee and is open til 9PM. Because it’s part of Kroger it’s probably possible to stay in this space past 9PM. Will give that a try some day*. Good place to be anonymous. Noise is not too bad and enough activity going on to keep you from sleeping or picking your nose. The vibe is good and neutral. And if you get really hungry behold the 24/7  Kroger that surrounds you.

*Yes you can stay past the closing time…if you don’t mind working with the lights off (they are on a timer).

Starbucks at Victory and Skidaway

Housed in a restaurant building that had been turning over every 6 months since I’ve lived here, this Starbucks has stuck around and is a favorite for telecommuters, students and conspirators. Its easy location with close access to the Truman Parkway, the Daffin Park area, Home Depot, Target and Staples makes it an ideal meeting spot for pound the pavement business and organizer types. The service is decent and the scenery is great. Many of the tables have plugs directly beneath and this is a good place to work. Just make sure you’re paying your rent with constant refills and pastry purchases.

Huddle House on Hwy 80 near the bypass

Booths with places to plug in available. No WiFi. Coffee cheaper than starbucks and your usual fare of killer omelettes and other gut busting diner cuisine.

If you need to work longer hours into the night, though, this is not the place. They will rush you out the door once you finish a meal, even if the place is empty. Maybe this is company policy.

Eh.. the natives mean well. But it can be a drag to try to work here.

Public Spaces:
Forsyth Park
Savannah’s famous central park is a great place to work if you’ve got the battery charged up and you’ve got a broadband card. Perhaps we can convince the city to bless the space with a wi-fi cloud.

Tybee Pier
In the summer, NOT a great place to work because of the blaring music and temptation (for some of us) to visit the bar too early in the day or to be visited by visitors who have visited the bar too early in the day. Hint, on Tybee, it’s never too early in the day. But there are peaceful times on the pier in the spring and fall. Plugs near the railings. When you’re lucky you have a nice office overlooking the waterfront.

kaht Savannah, Telecommuting