A Freelancer's Coffeeshop Haven Opens In Paris
By now the rampant echoes of Brooklyn throughout Paris have become almost parody-like in their exhaustive imitations of the trendy borough (take, for example this copycat of Williamsburg's Diner and an outpost of the Brooklyn vegan restaurant M.O.B. in the Marais), but at the newly opened Café Craft, a visitor will find more than just pots of strong, American-style coffee brewing within its walls.
The café, whose founder spent some time as a barista in New York before returning to his home country, is intended to be a space for freelancers and creatives to order coffee (traditional French-style espresso or filtered coffee à la America), and hunker down at long communal tables with their laptops. And yes, that's currently quite a novelty over there. While posting up for hours on end in a coffee shop is a second nature practice here in the States, the idea of counter service, let alone free Wifi (pronounced "wee-fee"), is still a rather new concept to le Brooklyn wannabes, where the primary reason for going to a café used to be to smoke, drink, converse and watch the passersby.
To implant some of Brooklyn's coffee culture into Paris' Canal St-Martin neighborhood, an area already well-known for its hipster habitués, co-owner Augustin Blanchard enlisted the French design firm POOL to create a functional working environment that successfully integrated characteristics of both cities in a modern and stylish format.
Geometric tiles in black and white channel New York and complement the overall cleanness of the café, while classic Parisian apartments inspired the herringbone parquet floors. Communal tables, multiple power outlets and a lounge area are all deliberately laid out as components for fostering long work sessions, too. We're impressed! High five to Blanchard and his team for creating a destination that takes inspiration from Brooklyn without bastardizing it. See images below.
Café Craft, located at 24, Rue des Vinaigriers in the city's trendy Canal St-Martin enclave.[/caption]
Clean lines and black and white décor lend themselves to the streamlined and minimal space.[/caption]
A communal workstation featuring power outlets and ethernet connections (for customers without Wifi access).[/caption]
