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October 26, 2014<\/p>\n
Portland Cafe Ethnography.<\/p>\n
Location: Coffee by Design on India Street<\/p>\n
1:00pm<\/em><\/p>\n There is a strong smell of coffee and the cafe is surprisingly full for an early Sunday afternoon; there are different kinds of people here; some people are working \u2014 on homework or other stuff; most of them have laptops, iPads. There is one guy sitting in front of me; he is nervously checking his phone, seems like he’s waiting for someone.<\/p>\n There is a parking lot across the street. but there are much more people walking by than driving. Only one person is reading a physical newspaper – man in his 60s. There are tables and chairs right outside of the cafe today, the weather is beautiful.<\/p>\n 1:10pm<\/em><\/p>\n Bunch of new people just walked in; people seem to be really excited about the sunny weather, a lot of them are starting to sit outside. Cafe has tea brands and themed mugs for sale. Everyone who walks in spends around 30 seconds looking at them.<\/p>\n 1:20pm<\/em><\/p>\n A lot more people walked in over the course of past 10 minutes; younger people come in groups or couples, while older people are mostly alone, spending time drinking coffee and reading physical newspapers.<\/p>\n 1:30pm<\/em><\/p>\n The cafe is narrow, some people seem to be leaving when they see people standing around; seems like they do not want to wait. More people started coming in. Mostly in groups of two. People who are sitting alone are\u00a0less responsive to mental map requests.<\/p>\n 1:40pm<\/em><\/p>\n The proximity of the tables brings people together; strangers are talking across tables.\u00a0The cafe is\u00a0not expensive; this must be a reason \u00a0for a wide range of people coming in.<\/p>\n 1:50pm<\/em><\/p>\n The influx of people stopped; early\u00a0afternoon must be a peak time for getting coffee; people who are here right now seem to be settled down for a while, working, reading or talking. There is a couple who is knitting in the cafe which is pretty cool. Its gotten pretty quiet in here.<\/p>\n 2:00pm<\/em><\/p>\n More and more people are starting to leave the cafe as the time goes on. There are only a couple tables occupied right now, while there were almost none free about 20-30 minutes ago.<\/p>\n 2:10pm<\/em><\/p>\n People who are still here are either working on something or in a group; no more people reading newspapers or drinking coffee by themselves; no more people walking in to get coffee or bagel either; seems like the busiest time is from 1 to about 1:30 pm, at least on Sundays.<\/p>\n 2:20pm<\/em><\/p>\n Some more people started walking into the cafe; but again mostly couples. Nothing interesting is going on anymore, no more loud conversations across tables or between people who are together. It is still very quiet.<\/p>\n 2:30pm<\/em><\/p>\n While asking people for mental maps, it turned out that a lot of people who have been in the cafe for a long time are not residents of Portland; people come to Portland for a day to just hang out. People are coming into the cafe again. The timing of this is interesting, why are some periods completely dead? Now there are people talking and the sound of coffee machines can be heard again. It makes a cafe more lively.<\/p>\n 2:40pm<\/em><\/p>\n People keep coming in from time to time, it is more quiet though than when there was the same amount of people earlier in the day. Number of people walking outside has decreased, as well as the number of cars driving by.<\/p>\n 2:50pm<\/em><\/p>\n As it turns out music has been playing the background all along, but I only noticed it now, because it is unusually quiet; People\u2019s conversations have been filtering the music out\u00a0before.<\/p>\n 3:00pm & 3:10 pm<\/em><\/p>\n No significant changes, some people left, some people came in but the general atmosphere is still the same.<\/p>\n 3:20pm<\/em><\/p>\n Still the same situation; I think this is one of the quiet periods of the cafe as noted earlier.<\/p>\n 3:30pm<\/em><\/p>\n Still no changes. Very quiet and relaxed; no significant inflow or outflow of people; One woman has been here all along.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After collecting mental maps from residents and chatting with them about the city, I realized that there is no single set of smart city recommendations because Portland is different for every single one of its residents. One of the\u00a0Issues that most interviewees\u00a0pointed out was the lack of efficient public transportation system. So, I guess there … Continue reading West End – Best End, Mental Maps of Portland and Cafe Ethnography<\/span>