Website: dailygrind.ca
Address: 3393 Portage Ave
Hours: M-F – 7:30a – 10p, S – 8a – 10p, S – 9a – 6p

The Daily Grind is the west-most coffee shop in the city, located in a strip mall between a Subway and a Liquor Mart. It’s also the closest coffee shop to home for me, so this is where I’ve been spending most of my time. I thought it would make a fitting first review.

Remember the 90s, when coffee shops were springing up on every street corner of the suburbs, every one trying to be more like The Central Perk than the last? With names like Java Junction, Java Jungle, Java the Hut, hire-my-friends-and-never-pay-them. Well, the Daily Grind is the last of that dying breed (TIL even the original is closed).  They offer the craziest selection of food and drink: specially coffees, milkshakes, full lunches (which smell really good!), pastries, gellato and a couple dozen other things I have probably missed.

The Daily Grind is a large space, a little bigger than most Starbucks. During a week day, you’ll typically find this place fairly empty and quiet, there have been afternoons when I’ve been the only customer in the restaurant. It seems to be mostly occupied by senior citizens and the occasional college kid working on a paper. I’ve only seen one or two “professionals.” The chairs are well padded and there are a number of tables of varying sizes.

There are a fair number of outlets along the wall attached to the Subway (none on the other side as far as I can tell). WiFi is password protected, reasonably fast and fairly reliable – I’ve had it drop out a few times. The store is usually manned by someone who seems to be the owner and one or two support staff. I take it the restaurant doesn’t see a lot of rush traffic, as every time more than 2 or 3 customers arrive, the service grinds to a halt.

OK. Let’s get down to the first rating.

• Busyness: Great! No one’s every there, really, these guys could use your business.
• Seating: Great! The most comfortable chairs I’ve seen at a coffee shop so far.
• Noise/Ambience: Great! (see above)
• Staff Friendliness: Fine.
• Power: Great!
• WiFi: Fine.

Overall Rating: Great!

If you live around this part of town, give it a shot.

Reviews

• Daily Grind – 3393 Portage Ave, Winnipeg
• Starbucks: Chapters Polo Park – 695 Empress St, Winnipeg
• Joe Black Coffee – 2037 Portage Ave, Winnipeg

About the Guide

Since abruptly losing my job a month ago, I’ve been doing freelance work full time (p.s. hire me). I don’t presently have a dedicated office space at home, so I’ve been working at coffee shops 3 or 4 days per week. Sometimes visiting 2 per day.

Today on Twitter, I came up with the idea to rate the “laptop worker friendliness” of the places I’ve been visiting. To some degree this is the type of thing that could theoretically be covered by a site like Yelp!. But, I think there’s value in specifically targeting a review at free-loading telecommuters. If there’s an app or site that’s already doing a good job of this, please let me know in the comments.

I asked a few people for suggestions on what aspects to rate, I think I’ve come up with a good set of criteria. I’ll be using a 3 point scale (borrowed from Underconsideration’s “Brand New” blog): bad, fine and great.

I’ll be rating:

• Busy-ness: How easy is it to find a table. Are there a lot of consumers to distract you.
• Seating: My number one difficulty in working at a coffee shop has been the quality of seating. For the most part, I think the seating is chosen to discourage extended stays. I will not be taking couches or armchairs into consideration, as I am unable to work in that position.
• Noise/Ambiance: Pretty straightforward. Is it noisy? Is the atmosphere conducive to focusing. Do you feel out of place working on a laptop?
• Staff Friendliness: Do they shoot you a dirty look if you stick around for more for an hour.
• Power Outlets: The number of outlets, are they easy to get to, are the located in weird places.
• WiFi: Do you need an account with a service (if so which), signal strength, speed, reliability.

My reviews will be focused around these factors and I’ll combine them somehow to form a overall recommendation.

I chose not to cover coffee or food. For the most part, I’ve found the coffee to be fairly equivalent across the board and honestly, I haven’t been eating at these places. Obviously, I’ll note any exceptions.

Over this past month I’ve been sticking close to home (Heritage Park, in St James) and been going to a lot of Starbucks. But if I keep this up, I’d like to venture out specifically for the blog.