By Daniel Arimborgo
A New Age piece by Robert Miles wafts from speakers. The cafe gets plenty of outdoor light during the day and is dimly lit in the evening – too much light is not wanted when looking at a PC screen.
Annie Chen tends the alcohol-free bar, serving up everything from flavored tea to Vietnamese-style coffee, as well as fries, onion rings, and chicken nuggets. Bagged popcorn sits in a glass case next to a toaster. A blue lava lamp percolates nearby. A sign on an easel touts $3.25 chicken pot pies and $3.95 fried squid.
The cafe, open from 11:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. seven days a week, has been open for business for nearly a month.
Another employee, Andrew Ho, works on one of the 15 800-megahertz machines connected to 19-inch monitors. Boxes on a shelf over some machines display games like Unreal Tournament, Counter Strike, and Diablo II, which are loaded into the machines and can be played solo or with others online.
The computers can also be used for homework, study, Internet chatting, and e-mailing.
Chen says the cafes are very popular overseas, including Taiwan.
The lounge can seat about 50 people, and Chen says they can host parties and other events..
“Sometimes we host gaming tournaments, where the winner gets a certain amount of free hours to come in and use the computers,” she says.
Opening the cafe was the idea of Frank Yu, who previously owned and operated Frontier Technology, a computer retail outlet, at the same location.
Yu told his current business partner, Benjamin Hsi, about the idea and they began building the cafe in July, Chen says. Plush lounge chairs are arranged around tables in the spacious, purple-ceilinged interior, while the PC stations sit against a wall running the length of the approximately 3,000-square-foot lounge.
A wall at the far end of the establishment will someday also serve as a large, home entertainment-sized projection screen for TV and movies, Chen says.
From now through Dec. 31, the cafe is having a grand opening promotional deal on 30-day memberships: half off the regular $50 a month price, and half off the regular $4 hourly rate for non-members. Chen says the hourly rate is in contrast to the usual minute rate charged in Manhattan.
Membership is “well worth it if you come 12 to 15 hours a month,” she says.
“Around 3 o'clock, the kids from the Catholic schools, they pretty much come in every day,” Chen says. “There are Internet games they like to play.”
She adds, “There is another crowd at night, around 7 p.m. Weekends are also busy, the kids are out of school, it's a relaxing place.”
Chen expects business to get better when the weather does.
“People just want to go home when it is cold,” she says.
