ABSTRACT
A palpable buzz fills the air inside cafés and coffee shops. 1 Artists, designers, programmers, and others in the creative industries work away at their laptops, drawing inspiration from not only the caffeinated beverages, but the spaces themselves. Being in a coffee shop stimulates all five senses, thus promoting the creative process. The coffee shop as an engaging environment is not, however, a new phenomenon. The West’s first coffee shop opened in Oxford, England in 1650, and the concept spread to the other intellectual and influential cities of Europe (Pendergrast 2010: 12). They were colloquially known as “penny universities” since the cost of tuition to take part in the inspired theoretical and political discourses was the price of a cup of coffee.
