Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 19, 1995 TAG: 9507190078
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JERRY MARKON ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
Welcome to the cybercafe, the newest addition to the on-line lexicon.
It offers more than cappuccino and cholesterol-free brownies. And the chips aren't just made of chocolate.
New York's first three cybercafes, which opened this spring in the East Village, charge customers $10 to $14 an hour to use a computer linked to the Internet. While they eat or drink, patrons can send e-mail, scope a chat line or, at one cafe, plug in their own laptop.
More than making money, the cafe owners say their goal is to educate a public still intimidated by computers.
``You don't have to be a brain surgeon to use the Internet,'' says Dave Williams, co-owner of The Heroic Sandwich Cybercafe. ``It's very easy to understand. We're trying to provide a comfortable atmosphere to use it.''
The on-line cafes are among about 50 that have opened worldwide in the past several years - with at least 25 more in the works - according to a cybercafe guide obtained electronically at Manhattan's Internet Cafe.
About 20 of those are in the United States, in cities ranging from Seattle and San Francisco to Nashville and Atlanta.
Trendy? No, says Lu Ratunil, a customer at the cafe.
``I dare you to go outside and find someone who will pay $5 to use the Internet for a half-hour,'' Ratunil, a Manhattan computer graphic artist, says as he nibbles on a BLT and scrolls through a database directory.
``A one-time customer won't come back here unless he has a reason to be on the Net, and what's a reason? To look at cool stuff? That's not enough.''
But Bert Presberg, a computer-illiterate psychiatrist, was entranced with the Grateful Dead song lyrics his two friends were showing him at a nearby terminal.
``They're trying to get me interested in the computer, so they put up a subject I'm interested in,'' says Presberg, a Berkeley, Calif., resident who was so inspired he may now buy a computer.
One of his friends, Manhattan free-lance writer Mark Shulman, says he likes the cafe's ``social setting. Doing the Internet is very solitary at home. We're sharing our interests here.''
Co-owner Glenn McGinnis says that's just the kind of social atmosphere he was seeking when he opened the cafe April 24 with five investors.
The is Manhattan's largest cybercafe and the only one that offers a full menu with everything from sandwiches to sushi to meatloaf. But it feels like a coffeehouse, with 15 terminals scattered within red brick walls that used to house the St. Mark's Bookshop.
The atmosphere is so mellow that employees sometimes need to be reminded to answer the phone.
``We encourage people to hang out,'' says McGinnis, 25, a recent Cornell University graduate.
His MacIntosh PowerMac 6100s and PCs cost $5 per half-hour to use, while an e-mail address is $5 per month.
The cafe also offers video conferencing and concerts or poetry readings that are ``broadcast'' onto the Internet through tiny cameras and microphones atop five computers.
Education is the goal at the Internet Cafe, which offers Internet training classes - $20 for two hours, plus one hour of computer time.
The cafe is one narrow room with a few tables, loose chairs and bookshelves lined with computer magazines, novels and that day's copy of The New York Times. A sign on the wall reads ``Smoking Permitted.''
``If you don't work in technology, you can't learn everything about computers from a book,'' says owner Arthur Perley, a Wall Street computer consultant who lives next door to the cafe.
His four PCs run from $6 to $10 an hour, depending on what you want to do. Customers also can connect their own laptops and use a color scanner and laser printer.
Perley, 38, says the favorite Internet databases usually are chat lines and e-mail. Kids often peruse ``The Lion King'' homepage, while one woman doing genealogical research found Virginia census data from 1850.
The Heroic Sandwich is the smallest local cybercafe, with one Pentium PC ($7 per half-hour).
Owner Dave Williams, 26, says the ``nonthreatening'' approach is deliberate - and designed to attract women.
``Some people say the Internet is like six guys sitting around the hood of a car and checking the carburetor,'' he says, referring to surveys that have said women use the Internet less than men.
``We want to show men and women that the Internet is a tool for them,'' he adds. ``It's only limited to your imagination.''
by CNB