Hours and programming

A Saturday, hour by hour

At eleven the doors open. The espresso machine has been on for twenty minutes and two regulars are waiting, one of whom has been here every Saturday since the spring.

By one there are fifteen or twenty people in, most of them working. There are laptops, a book club in the corner, and music low enough to talk over. Nobody is asked whether they want anything else.

Three in the afternoon is the busiest daytime hour. A graduate student takes the two-top by the window and will still be there at seven. About half the orders come with something to eat: a pastry, a sandwich, a bowl of soup.

At five the lights come down. The table lamps come up, the ceiling lights go off, and the bar opens. Some of the afternoon stays and starts a tab. This is the hour the whole idea depends on, and the room is designed so that it happens without a reset.

At six the lights are down and the bar is busy. The people still working are not cleared out, because the stage is not in the middle of the floor and nothing on it will be loud enough to stop them.

By eight the room is filling toward its evening size, and there is no cover at the door. The kitchen keeps turning out light fare: sandwiches, small plates, soup.

At nine there is something on: a duo, a trio, a record played front to back. It is in the room rather than over it, and you can hear the person across the table. On a special night, a touring act or a comedian announced in advance, the performance is the point and everyone came for it.

At eleven whatever was on has finished and the bar stays open for another hour. People finish their drinks and leave in ones and twos rather than all at once.

At midnight the doors close and the staff are out by half past. That is a shift people will work again next week.

The week

The lounge nights early in the week are the quiet ones on purpose: a film on the wall, the bar open, and no cover. Thursday and Friday are performance nights run as a basket house. An Eastman student, a songwriter, someone reading their work, ten or fifteen of them across an evening in short sets, unamplified or barely, paid from a basket passed through the room. The night exists for them as much as for the audience, and the audience is whoever is already there. Saturday is the same room at the weekend with something on that does not take it over. On any night the rule is the same: you can hear the person across the table. A special night, a band that draws its own crowd, someone from JazzFest, a touring comedian, is announced as one, and on that night the performance is the point.

Sundays

Sunday runs from eleven to eight, all year. The daytime is the same coffeehouse as any other day. At five the lounge opens and stays open until eight, with no cover. From September to January the Bills game is on instead of the film, and in a Rochester winter that is the point of a Sunday.

Two decisions that are practical, not stylistic

The doors close at midnight. Not at two. A midnight close is far easier to licence in a building with apartments nearby, it is cheaper to insure because the hours after two are where the claims are, and a shift that ends at half past midnight is one people will keep working. Hours can be extended later once there is door data to justify it. Taking hours away from an audience that has settled into them is much harder.

There is no full kitchen. The food is light fare: sandwiches, simple soups, pastries and small plates, made in a small prep kitchen rather than a line kitchen. That is enough to keep someone here through the evening, and it keeps the build small, the payroll small, and the room quiet enough to work in.

Next: Who it is for