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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

Restaurants emulate coffee shops with work areas, offer Internet access

Typing furiously on an iBook, a student reaches out and takes a large bite of an Italian submarine sandwich. As he chews, his eyes don't turn away from the screen, fixated on his task at hand.\n"Study fuel," he jokes to a friend.\nBut this student isn't tucked away in his room, cramming for his test. He's found a comfortable environment to relax and study in while picking up something to eat at Dagwood's on Kirkwood Avenue, one of many places that have started offering amenities once found only at Starbucks.\nMore and more the coffee shop of the '90s is losing out as the main youth hangouts -- restaurants -- are adopting the same comfort and services that have made many of these cafes a hot spot for work or play. Several restaurants in Bloomington have made this leap by offering a spacious, comfortable dining area, food to snack on and wireless Internet access.\nThe usual business model for most restaurants has always been to be as efficient as possible. Rush customers in and out, so more customers can take up their dining space and spend more dollars. This new coffee-shop strategy embodied by restaurants is not aimed at constant turnover, but at luring people in and having them continue to consume as they relax in the surroundings.\nOne restaurant which has been leading in this trend is Panera Bread, a national chain that serves homemade bread, sandwiches and soup. Not only does Panera have a wide-open dining area with soft chairs and coffee shop-like scenery, but wireless Internet access is free to all customers.\nJudy Favreau, general manager of Panera near Bloomington's College Mall, says this is all part of making the eatery an "everyday oasis" for customers.\n"People can come in and conduct their business without being bothered or rushed out the door or they can just have a conversation and chill out," Favreau said.\nBloomington resident Lois Saxton comes into Panera at least once a week for lunch or dinner with a thick book in hand to enjoy some time to herself.\n"I like eating here, because I don't feel like I have to be in a hurry," she said with a mug of coffee in one hand and a book in the other. "I can just sit here, read as much as I want and relax."\nFor most of these café-style restaurants, the empty space can actually be a draw. \nNate Wilerson, general manager of Yat's, an Indianapolis-based chain of Cajun restaurants, said Yat's boasts of the coolest places for college students to hang out and enjoy a meal. The dining room is spacious and adorned with hip, coffee-shop art. The location on College Avenue in Indianapolis even puts its customers at ease with couches placed right inside the restaurant and wireless Internet access.\n"You seem to open up the audience and really draw people in with atmosphere," Wilkerson said.\nOwner and head chef Joe Vuscovich said he wanted to make a place with low overhead and a comfortable atmosphere where anyone could hang out.\nAnother tactic restaurants have borrowed from coffee shops is offering wireless Internet access. Both Panera and Dagwood's, among others, offer these services in their dining area.\nSorin A. Matei, an assistant professor at Purdue University, said this is all part of a larger trend to spread wireless Internet hot spots nationwide.\nMatei did a study of Lexington, Ky., which he says represents average Midwest metro areas, and found the number of hot spots more than tripled from 754 in August 2003 to 2,652 in May 2004. Matei said this trend shows no signs of slowing, with more and more restaurants adding wireless Internet access. He did however discount the theory that customers would consume more during their extended stay at the restaurant unless they served food like Panera's -- coffee, bagels and snacks. He also questioned the usefulness of wireless access and whether offering it for free would be a sound business move.\n"This is an experiment for now," he said. "I don't know how necessary the service is at most coffee shops or restaurants, but it adds to the image as a hip place to hang out."\nIU economics professor Eric Rasmusen notes that though this trend may be new in the United States, it's been practiced before in European cafes. He said that most slow, spacious restaurants use tactics like wireless Internet access to create a "hangout vibe." \n"This would work best for restaurants that are not full to capacity," he said. "It would be especially useful for restaurants whose emptiness might otherwise deter customers from coming in. Sometimes people do not want to be the only customers at a restaurant."\nWhether it's because of the dining space, casual food choice or Internet access, it seems the Monk's Diners of "Seinfeld" are catching up with the Central Perks of "Friends" to become the new hangouts for this generation.\n"Going out to eat doesn't always have to be a big fancy thing," Favreau said. "With great conversation and a comfortable place to hang out, cheap dining can be a treat, too."\n-- Contact sports editor Adam Aasen at aaasen@indiana.edu.

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