A Taste for the Net

A visitor from Indiana checks on her e-mail, while a college student researches the latest data on the rain forest. She’s drinking a cafe latte, he’s munching on a bagel. At another station, a customer navigates the Internet while his salad wilts. It’s a typical day at a cyber cafe, one of more than 400 that have been sprouting up around the world, from the Valley to Paris and Bangkok.

What isn’t typical yet is the cyber cafe concept itself. From rudimentary to high tech, the cafes run the gamut from glitz to grunge, from your basic coffeehouse equipped with one or two online computers to full-service restaurants where you can arrange audiovisual tele-conferencing with a business associate in London.

The decor may be vintage thrift store or decorator chic, but access to the Internet along with food and drink is the common thread. So what’s luring people of all ages to surf the net in these public places?

“Try-before-you-buy is the reason a lot of people come in. There’s so much technology out there, people don’t have the time or money to check it all out. That’s what we offer,” said Tomas Wise, co-owner of New York’s Cyber Cafe Inc. The company holds the only official trademark on the Cyber Cafe name, which has since gone generic.

Located in Manhattan’s media center, which Wise laughingly refers to as Silicon Alley, the cafe caters to a professional clientele that includes hardware and software developers. Consequently, his upscale operation has the fastest and latest equipment.

There are experts on staff to service, advise and train people. The T1 line, the fastest available at the moment, can accommodate 100 computers at a time, although there are only nine on site right now.

A client with a portable computer and an Internet card can plug into one of the cafe’s portable jacks, have a T1 at their disposal and download right on to their own computer. Is the high-tech expense worth it? Wise believes it is.

“The history of cafes has been as places to meet your friends, communicate, read your papers, write and correspond,” he said. “The idea is to revolutionize cafes as communications change and people communicate in different ways.”

A far cry from the days of the neighborhood diner with mini jukeboxes at each table, cyber cafes seem to attract people who seek a connection to the world at their fingertips and a desire for a sense of community in this technological age.

In our own backyard, there’s Industry Cyber Cafe located just below Universal City, plus such coffeehouses as Horse Shoe Cafe in Sherman Oaks and Ground Zero in Burbank. And for the ultimate multimedia blowout, there is the Media Center in Burbank.

At the high-tech end is Industry Cyber Cafe, where a dark maze of intertwining rooms includes posters, movie rentals, a library and a couple of corner computer booths that remind you of church confessionals.

There are also fax and copy machines, and an array of legal software, forms and contracts. When the monitor begins to look fuzzy, you can wander over to the pool table and play against yourself. No charge.

Connection to the Internet is $5 an hour, $8.50 if you want to get on America Online. One wall posts the week’s nightly schedule including Monday’s Cyber Night, where computer professionals and hobbyists network. On other dates there are workshops for writers and actors, an open-mike night, comedy night and live bands.

“We call ourselves the ultimate entertainment-industry resource center because that’s what we are,” said Matthew Barasch, entertainment attorney and owner.

“We’re not just a cyber cafe, we’re a cyber cafe for the entertainment industry. We have every single thing in this place under one roof that the aspiring actor, writer, producer or director would need to make it.”

Barasch said that a continual stream of requests for legal advice and a growing desire to get out of law motivated him to come up with a new way to make a living. Because most of his friends are actors, he said, the idea of an entertainment-oriented cafe made perfect sense.

“I knew there was no way I could have a cafe in this day and age without making it a cyber cafe, so that’s how it came about,” said Barasch, who opened the cafe last September. His goal was to give people low-cost legal services, a convenient place to get coffee, video rentals, access to the Internet and e-mail, tutoring and desktop publishing.

He even offers an on-site TV show filmed every morning from 9 to 12, called “You’re on the Air.” Broadcast through public access television, the program is designed to give actors their own reel, using a different host each day. Barasch said he started it as a publicity gimmick to lure customers, and it has become one of the more popular features, along with the scanner and graphics.

But it’s the ability to get on the Industry’s Web page, with some help from Bill Phillips, resident Web master, that is a major attraction for entertainment industry hopefuls.

“When an actor comes in here who does a show or auditions for our TV show, I take their head shot and scan it on to our own Web page, so that we have our own cyber casting,” Barasch said.

While others may offer this service, he’s the only one doing it free of charge, figuring that someday casting directors are going to start checking Web sites, and by then he’ll have 5,000 head shots ready for them.

Going from maxi to mini, glitz to grunge, you can pick up an espresso at the HorseShoe Cafe in Sherman Oaks or Ground Zero in Burbank, and if you’re lucky, get access to one or two computers. Many of these cafes are part of coin-operated networks accessed through CafeNet Online, where the computers are a small part of the business.

Primarily darkly lit coffeehouses reminiscent of the beatnik era, these places offer an Internet experience at the drop of a quarter for three minutes or $5 an hour. You can surf the Net, get a personalized e-mail address or eat, drink and socialize from 7 a.m to midnight or later.

At Ground Zero in Burbank, Michelle is behind the food bar, the place devoid of customers, but it’s midmorning and there are hours to go before the food and beverage bar closes.

“After five, when people get off work, they line up to use one of the computers,” she said. Some loosen up by playing cybergames, others might hit a chat line, do research, check the weather in Bombay, propose marriage to a stranger. Who knows?

One certainty is that cyber cafes tend to come and go, some more quickly than others. It’s a tough business unless there are added incentives like tasty food and reliable equipment, preferably state-of-the art. It also helps to have a knowledgeable technician handy.

New cyber cafes are springing up, some with features so awesome as to defy description. Media City Center mall in Burbank will blast away technophobes with its Virtual Cine Plex, just getting off the ground.

This emergence from the cocoon of the home computer to the public realm of cyber cafes leaves one to question whether it’s just another trend. For those hungry for food and companionship while doing solitary surfing, it’s a place to go. So what if it is only virtual reality. At least at a cyber cafe, the other people sitting at other computers are real.

Besides, where else can you learn to cheat at computer solitaire or find out how to get back home when you’re lost in space?

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DETAILS -- TO FIND A CYBER CAFE:

* The Industry Cyber Cafe, 3191 Cahuenga Blvd. West, Hollywood. Matthew Barasch, owner. (213) 845-9998; fax (213) 845-1870; e-mail: industryearthlink.net.

* Ground Zero, 124 N. San Fernando Road, Burbank. (818) 567-4257.

* Horse Shoe Coffee House, 14568 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks. (818) 986-4262; e-mail: infocafenet.net Web: www.cafenet.net.

* Media City Center, 201 E. Magnolia Blvd., Burbank. Dan Millman, general manager. (818) 566-8566.

* Cyber House, 1407 E. Los Angeles Ave., Unit G, Simi Valley. Sam Tewfik, co-owner. (805) 581-6331; fax (805) 581-6375; e-mail: Webmasteramsn.com Web: www.amsn.com.

OTHERS UP AND DOWN THE COAST:

* Cyber Java, 1029 Abbott Kinney Road, Venice. Rom Agustin, owner. (310) 581-1300.

* World Cafe, 2820 Main Street, Santa Monica. (310) 392-1661.

* Almost Paradise Cafe, Long Beach. (310) 429-2066.

* CyberState Cafe, 1224 State St., Santa Barbara. (805) 899-3723; Web: www.cyber-state.com.

* The eCafe, 1219 State St., Santa Barbara. (805) 897-3335; Web: www.ecafe1.com.

* Library Bar, 723 Higuera St.,San Luis Obispo. (805) 542-0199.