Au Bon Pain may seem to be an unlikely place for me to end up, but that constant search for wireless internet makes a gal do strange things. Well, not so strange. Despite the name ("bon pain" means "good bread" in French, and I'm still sticking to a roughly low-carb diet), Au Bon Pain is a bakery and coffee shop chain of the same ilk as Brueggers and Panera, which means they have more than just bread and they offer wireless internet.

Au Bon Pain Downtown

The other day after a particularly busy day at work, I stopped downtown on my way home to run some errands and get some internet time. After doing some banking at the National City on Wood Street, I headed up toward the downtown branch of Carnegie library on Smithfield. I could have gone to the library for wireless, but I hadn't had anything to eat yet that day (this is the second, somewhat unintentional facet of my dieting strategy—having no time to eat) and I was looking for something warm one of those first chilly days of fall. Since it was on my way to Smithfield, I stopped at the Au Bon Pain to have a look around. Set up cafeteria-style, the downtown Au Bon Pain offered a variety of serve-yourself foods, including several crocks of soup, one of which, the Harvest Pumpkin, sounded just about perfect. I was a little annoyed to find that the soups came in two sizes, Medium and Large, necessitating that I pay no less than $3.45 for soup, but to be fair the medium was generous and I wasn't hungry at the end of it. I was also pleasantly surprised at the coffee selection. In addition to my voluntary diet restrictions, I have something of a caffeine sensitivity; caffeine won't kill me, but I prefer to drink decaf whenever it's available. This poses much frustration at most coffee shops when I find myself salivating over a selection of regular coffees, like Ecuadorian bold, vanilla hazelnut or toasted almond crème brulee... only to find that all they have in decaf is "House Blend." I was particularly impressed to find that Au Bon Pain offered both a house blend and a French roast in decaf.

And so, I sat down with my coffee and soup, ready to warm up and surf the Internet. The café was pretty empty at that time of day, so I easily managed to get a table near an electrical outlet. This is a problem with most internet coffee shop sorts of places—very few have more than one or two outlets. Otherwise the soup was tasty and the French roast decaf was satisfyingly robust (just because I'm drinking decaf doesn't mean I don't want strong-tasting coffee—the more it tastes like biting right into the bean, the better). I didn't end up longer than two hours at the Au Bon Pain because I had dinner plans, but I noticed on the way out that the decal on the glass door reported their regular weekday hours to be until 7:00 pm. Early closings are a persistent problem with downtown coffee shops, and a 7:00 closing is a welcome change from the 6:00 closings of most downtown establishments that offer wireless internet.

All in all, Au Bon Pain turns out to be a great find as a downtown internet spot. The moral of this story is... well, you pick: 1) downtown coffee shops should be open later; 2) people need more reasons to be downtown past 6:00; 3) downtown bars need to start offering wireless internet; or 4) fancy flavored decaf is an excellent daily source of anti-oxidants.