On Thursday morning, I wound up working just outside the Imagine Ice Cream shop, which is below the Breakwater Cafe.

While there may be Wifi available here, I chose to tether with my iPhone so I could get decent enough bandwidth to spend 90 minutes on Zoom. I had the umbrella out to take some glare off the screen.

The Breakwater Cafe is open for coffee at 9 AM, Wednesday through Sunday. Customers can use their washroom.

Among my favourite patio spaces in the downtown core, at 1021 Fort Street.

Great eats and coffee beverages, plus much more if you check out the menu! A very creative gang is at work in the kitchen. Have you tried the charcuterie boxes? I digress….!

This space has WIFI from the Picnic coffee shop, #TELUS wifi, and various other networks seem to be around here. If you’re a Shaw customer, then I gather you would have plenty of WIFI access all over the downtown core, so keep that in mind.

The bathroom is available to customers only.

Note the portable umbrella I’ve got popped up, that cuts down glare on the screen. The umbrella is in my portable kit, for situations just like this.

The location in the patio is basically right on Fort Street, so there is quite a bit of traffic noise. If you’re having a busy day of Zoom meetings, you might want to pick a quieter spot, depending on the quality of your mobile audio headphones / microphone / noise-cancellation setup.

The café is located at the corner of Blanshard and Johnson in downtown Victoria. I came over for a late lunch, and grabbed a seat out on the Johnson Street side of the patio. The WIFI network called “Mac Guest” is available out on the patio.

Working outside is often a challenge due to the glare on the laptop screen. This seat was next to a planter that has a ledge that cast a shadow at the time I day I was there (between 2:30 and 3 PM Pacific).

The coffee, sandwiches, salads, and snacks are all good – and competitively priced. The washroom is available to use for customers. I don’t believe there is a power outlet on this patio, so keep that in mind.

I came downtown on a rainy afternoon to grab a coffee at MOSI on Lower Johnson, then park somewhere out of doors and undercover to avoid the raindrops.

This bench is down on the courtyard level of Market Square. I grabbed WiFI from #TELUS, although there are many WIFI networks down here that you (or your laptop) may already know.

Many coffee options are nearby, including Hey Happy, and Shanzee’s Biscuit Cafe (serving Drumroaster Coffee at time of writing).

Yah, ergonomics of sitting on a bench for a while aren’t the best, but I like to do a change of scenery to re-charge the brain-waves, and to support my own notion of flow. I eventually finished the coffee, and got chilly on this rainy afternoon, so headed away after a couple of hours of work.

A series of posts to feature places and spaces that I have been working in during these most-challenging times.

Since the post on my mobile IT worker kit in Summer 2020, I have continued to find creative places and spaces in which to work. I’ll share some of those with you here!