[vallismortis]

For what it's worth, there was an earlier "Cyber Cafe" just off the campus of Michigan State University in the early to mid-90s called Emerald City Cafe. They had 128k ISDN connections to MichNet/Merit by 1994 (when I started going there), and by late 1995 had 3MBit TCI Cable Modem connections.

It wasn't a nightclub-style cafe like the one in the article, but it was really cozy, open until 11:30pm weeknights (1am weekends), and had excellent coffee. Plus the next room over was an arcade / laundry. It's a bummer I can't find an article about it. Just good memories.

https://www.cablevision.co.cr/review/1995/12.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merit_Network

[garciansmith]

Looks like the Emerald City Cafe opened in May of 1995.[1] It is possible it was open at another location though, before moving to the Trowbridge address, since the business was incorporated back in May of 1992.[2] But I could only find the cafe connected to 1050 Trowbridge, so I'm not sure. Would probably have to go through more local newspapers to confirm.

Edit: But it doesn't look like Emerald City provided internet access when it first opened. An article from September of 1995 talks about how it's something the owner was working on.[3] Maybe your memory of going there in 1994 is off by a year?

[1] "In the Works," Lansing State Journal, April 8, 1995, 5B, https://imgur.com/a/emerald-city-cafe-JEE1zVx

[2] https://cofs.lara.state.mi.us/CorpWeb/CorpSearch/CorpSummary...

[3] "A Web with Your Coffee?" Lansing State Journal, September 1, 1995, 5B, https://imgur.com/a/web-with-coffee-VaQvQuA

[cmiles74]

I helped setup the computers at JavaNet here in Northampton, MA; I believe that was in 1995. At that time they were also a local dial-up provider, their cafe definitely a coffee shop and was also quite cozy.

https://web.archive.org/web/19970613071702/http://www.javane...

[bee_rider]

Northampton, MA has to be one of the coziest places in the world, in general.