I decided a couple weeks ago, after returning from a long vacation on the east coast, that I was going to break out of my normal routine. Every morning pre-vacation I would wake up, grab my computer, and head out from my apartment in Pendelton to one of about 5 coffee shops within walking distance. I was in a rut. I was sick of the coffee, the people, and even the walk to get there. I’d been in Manhattan just a touch too long to be satisfied confining my perambulations to Over-the-Rhine alone!
I often have this realization and make promises to myself, too easily broken, that I’m going to shatter my routine. My pledge this time: I’m going to every single coffee shop in the metro area at least once and never to the same one twice until I completely exhaust my options. In an effort to hold myself accountable, I’ve decided to make a project of my commitment to diverse experience: I’m going to document every trip to every coffee shop including:
- Mode used to get there(walk, transit, bike, helicopter, etc.)
- Path taken(on the way there)
- Review of the coffee shop building and it’s surroundings
- Whether there was on-site parking
- Type of people seen there(mostly students? Business meetings? )
- How fun the trip was
- How long it took me to get there
- Time/Date of visit
or more precisely:
CREATE TABLE public.coffee_runs
(
gid integer NOT NULL DEFAULT nextval('coffee_runs_gid_seq'::regclass),
shop_name character varying,
trip_comments text,
coffee_comments text,
the_geom geometry(LineString,3735),
"time" timestamp without time zone DEFAULT now(),
type_of_folk text, -- What kind of people are here?
trip_fun_value integer, -- FUN: rated from 1 to 5, 5 being the most fun
trip_mins_taken integer,
mode character varying, -- bike, walk, transit, etc
on_site_parking boolean
)
The end result should be an interesting and esoteric map of coffee quality, trip types, and travel times from Downtown(ish). I’m extremely curious how the degree of trip-fun correlates with various areas of the city and modes of travel. A guess: The further out, the less fun. Hopefully there will be surprises!
Day one:
Starbucks, Downtown, second floor atrium, near Main and 6th. I have never been here before. (no statistically significant results just yet)
07/15/2013 at 4:30 pm
It also just occurred to me that noting the opening and closing hours would provide a good temporal indicator of public social activity throughout the region.
07/15/2013 at 8:53 pm
What happens when a planner gets into the travel and review business? I don’t know, but it will surely be an interesting ride!
08/06/2019 at 11:05 am
[…] been seven days of hanging out in coffee shops since my pledge to not visit the same one twice. I’ve mostly been picking off the low-hanging fruit, having walked or biked everywhere so […]