My café ethnography notes showed me a lot about the different populations of Portland. I saw different waves of people depending on the time. Earlier, there were many more young families with children. As time went on, the crowd shifted to an older crowd. Overall, the café seemed to have a very relaxed environment. People did not seem to be worried about being too loud, especially because there was a large children’s section of the café where kids played with each other.

The mental maps I collected reflected very different understandings of Portland’s geography. The two residents of Portland had much more developed and detailed maps of Portland while the commuters were much more vague and more focused on streets than on attractions. They all had very different improvement ideas ranging from apps for racking up points at restaurants to improved public transportation. I was not able to interview people with children for the mental maps, but I think it would be interesting to see whether there is a correlation between characteristics of people and their ideas for improving Portland.

Café Ethnography Notes:

Saturday, October 4th, 2014.

11:00 – I walked into Local Sprouts to see almost no open tables. All the tables are different, different chairs, different sizes. There is a piano in the front that looks as though it is open for people to play. There is a large population of pregnant women as well as young mothers with kids. A section in the back of the café (where I a sitting as there are no open seats near the windows) is cornered off as a place space for kids with bean bag chairs, toys, books, stuffed animals, and small chairs.

11:10 – I hear two couples with kids on their laps and in strollers talking about the movie “Daddy Day Care” and talking about how they need something like that in their lives. Two young kids from another table run back and forth from their table to the play section; their moms don’t seem to have an issue with the fact that they are just running around the café themselves.

11:20 – At the café, you order at a counter and receive a ceramic planting pot with a label to bring to your table and receive your food. The café has multiple purposes; it is a café as well as a restaurant as well as a bar. I also see posters for music events at the café, including a weekly “Music Brunch” on Sundays.

11:30 – Three kids around the age of 3 or 4 run over to the piano and all start banging on keys at the same time. No one seems to take any issue with it, as most café patrons are families. I do see the dad of at least one of the kids walk up to them all at the piano to try and make them stop, but they keep playing. After a minute, another one of the kids’ moms goes over to the piano to make them stop. The woman running the register walks over and covers the piano keys once the kids all scatter so that they can’t play anymore.

11:40 – A few of the moms have now left with their kids. It has gotten slightly quieter. The children playing in the kids’ section are jumping off a ledge onto big stuffed animals. I am a little confused as to why their parents are not watching them do this, as it looks like it could be a little dangerous.

11:50 – One of the girls jumping around in the kids’ section keeps jumping off and hitting her knees on the ground and yelling “ow!” but her parents still don’t turn around. She climbs onto another portion of a wall and falls off holding a large tic tac toe set. Her dad then gets up from his table to tell her and the other kids to try and tone it down a little bit.

12:00 – A baby starts crying across the room. A group of girls in their early 20s walk into the café to order lunch. It seems like the lunch crowd is starting to arrive as the families start to leave. I see a few older parents with older kids walk in as well as a few couples. It seems like most people are Portland residents, as their conversations involve many of the activities and events going on in Portland.

12:10 – The kids start arguing and yelling “no” back and forth at each other. The parents all get up and decide that it is time to go home and play more at home. They try and get the kids to clean up the play space, but they do not really listen and start to throw tantrums. The parents then pick up the toys for the kids and leave the café.

12:20 – Even more people come in for lunch. Seating is somewhat limited, so the people try and sit wherever they can fit. I cannot really see out of the windows, as they are pretty far away, but what I can see are just people walking by every few minutes. It is somewhat rainy out, so even though it is a Saturday, there are not that many people out. There are two buildings with commercial space for rent across the street as well as an art gallery, so they are not the “hottest” spots to hang out around at noon on a Saturday.

12:30 – A few adults in their late 20s/early30s are having a conversation about different kinds of root beer trying to decide which kinds of drinks to order. Two of them are engaged; I figure this out because a few of the older ones are talking about how “he’s gonna tear up when he sees her in her dress.” They all stand right near the main counter, not sitting yet. The café has quieted down a lot as almost all of the kids in the café are gone. Only one kid is still there, a young boy with long dreads with his parents (one of whom also has dreads).

12:40 – The large group of adults is sitting at a table right in front of me. I see one couple (not the original engaged couple) going through pictures on the woman’s phone. They pull up photos of a woman in a wedding dress who is most likely the same woman in the engaged couple. I also see an interaction between a man who cannot speak and the woman at the bar. She hands him a piece of paper and a pen so that he can write out what he is trying to say, as he is mute. It looks like the café gives him some of their recyclables so that he can take them to earn the bottle deposit money back.

12:50 – The table is still talking about weddings. Now they are talking more specifically about different ceremonies they have been to and the kinds of things included. One of them mentions that she is planning on having drinks before the ceremony itself so that people can all take drinks into the ceremony with them and the whole table cheers at the idea. It seems like one of the people is the mother of one of the girls and is treating all of them to lunch. They keep talking about the kinds of things people do at weddings and whether they will be giving speeches at their friends’ weddings or whether the mom will give a speech at her daughter’s wedding. Other than this table, the other people at the café all seem to be clearing out, as they have all finished their food.

1:00 – The café’s population is much older now. I see a few older men eating lunch together as well as a middle aged woman working on a computer in the opposite corner from me. The table in front of me is still talking about weddings, but now being slightly more profane about things that happen at weddings. I see many of the people sitting eating meals are checking their phones quite a lot. I still do not see anyone walking around outside, as it is still cloudy and damp out. The engaged woman is telling her fiancée that he cannot look at her iPhone photos. I think this is because she has pictures of her wedding dress on them and he cannot see the dress before the wedding.

1:10 – The table in front of me is still talking about weddings. The mom is talking about the emotions that she felt during someone’s wedding and one of the girls (possibly her daughter) is giving her sass about her emotions. A few more groups of people have walked in and the tables are almost all full. I have noticed different waves of people come into the café, there was definitely an earlier 11:00 group, 12:00 group, and now a 1:00 group of people.

1:20 – The people at the table in front of me are all leaving now. They are talking about how they are heading to the Holy Donut now. One of them tells another to not have the pomegranate flavored donuts as “those are the only ones that aren’t good.” There are more mentions of the wedding as they walk out the door. The other café patrons are all sitting around eating lunch or drinking hot drinks. I see one man across the café drinking a beer, but he seems to be the only one drinking alcohol.

1:30 – The café crowd has now changed from lunch to afternoon snacks and drinks. The tables are all entirely full. The only conversation I can overhear is between two parents and their daughter. She is telling them about a semester she spent on a farm and the educational experience she had living on this farm. There are now two kids playing in the play space who are here with their parents, two boys (around ages 4 and 3) who are playing with the tic tac toe board and the giant gorilla stuffed animal. They’re throwing toys around the floor and whacking each other with stuffed animals.

Mental Maps:

Reed:

19 years old, male, student, has lived in Portland (and Maine) for 19 years in the Back Cove. One improvement: have restaurants band together and if you are a frequent Portland diner then you can get points on an app that will allow you to get free meals/gelato/discounts.

Doris:

42 years old, female, professor, has lived in Portland for 7 years, Maine for 9 years, lives in the West End.

Kyle:

24 years old, male, Trader Joes crew member, has commuted to Portland for 2 years, has lived in ME for two years, lives in Saco. One improvement: one main entrance into the city of Portland to lead tourists directly to the tourist area.

Dave:

58 years old, male, training associate at Panera Bread, has commuted to Portland for 7 years, has lived in ME for 7 years, lives in Old Orchard Beach. One improvement: more public transportation and more access times because buses run so infrequently. Also – find some way to go electric/solar with the buses. Just for fun: have Tesla build all the buses!