Peet's coffee chain catering to digital nomads

SANTA BARBARA, CALIF. -- Peet's Coffee & Tea will open a huge new coffee joint Monday in my town of Santa Barbara, Calif. -- about a mile and a half from my house. I got an impromptu tour of the place yesterday, and discovered that the chain is starting to cater in a big way to digital nomads.

First, a little history. Peet's Coffee, which originated in the Bay Area in the 1960's, was the coffee-bean store that inspired Starbucks in the early 1970s. Starbucks actually acquired Peet's in 1984, but later spun it out again.

The two chains quickly diverged, with Starbucks focusing on fast global expansion, and Peet's taking it slow and focusing on super high quality coffee. (Peet's really does have the best coffee I've ever tried.)

However, Starbucks has long been a better choice for digital nomads, simply because their stores have always been more likely to have available tables. A typical Starbucks in California might have between 10 and 20 tables, where a comparable Peet's might have between 5 and 10.

A Peet's I used to frequent in Silicon Valley across the freeway from Oracle's headquarters had probably four of five tables, and they were almost always taken.

Neither Peet's nor Starbucks is particularly friendly in terms of available wall outlets, in my experience.

So imagine my delight to discover that the new Peet's in Santa Barbara has dozens of tables and plenty of outlets.

I talked to the manager, who said they installed the wall outlets specifically for customers to plug into while using their free Wi-Fi. (Like Starbucks, Peet's offers free Wi-Fi. But unlike Starbucks, you don't need to use Peet's debit card to use it.) "We're learning," he said.

OK, so the new Peet's in Santa Barbara has free Wi-Fi, lots of wall outlets and plenty of seating. Why am I telling you this?

The reason is that California is a massive state (more populous than Canada), and has four large cities, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose and San Francisco. The first two are in Southern California, and the second two are in the San Francisco Bay Area in the north of the state. Within these two large urban areas, there are many Peet's, as well as thousands of options for digital nomads to park themselves near an outlet in a Wi-Fi zone. However, when driving between southern and northern California on the US 101, the options for easy-on, easy-off digital nomad-style locations are few and far between.

As of Monday, the new Peet's in Santa Barbara will be the best place to do that for travellers making the 360-mile drive between L.A. and Silicon Valley. However, if you're unfamiliar with Santa Barbara, and punch in Peet's address into your GPS, you'll be directed to a busy street with zero parking. So I'm going to tell you how to get there and park for free.

Get off the 101 on Carrillo St. Go North-East on Carrillo (that's a right turn if you were heading North on the 101, left if you were going South). Turn left on Chapala St. After passing Figueroa St., look for a parking lot entrance on your right. The entrance looks like this. Once parked, head away from the parking lot ticket booth and between the buildings. You'll enter a courtyard, and see the back door to Peet's (there will be tables outside) on the left.

Someday, there will be Peet's in every town, and, more importantly, all coffee joints will have free, unlimited Wi-Fi. But in the meantime, it's nice to know that at least one major chain is trying to cater to the growing digital nomad movement.

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