[Centurion]

Note: I've never actually had coffee from these places. Starbucks is pretty much horrible and it was a Thursday afternoon when I visited the others- I didn't want to have caffeine this late in the day. I would normally have a short/long black though. It's what NZ calls a double espresso with no milk or sugar- short is a small(half?) cup of water, long is a big(full?) cup of water.

Starbucks, Queen St/Victoria St



Was the only one I knew for a long while. When I first started daygaming I figured I'd go for the most popular ones in town and I think this is it. It's still relatively dead though- there may only be 20-30 maybe 40 or so when it's busy but there would pretty much be no hotties the vast majority of the time. I have, however gamed 3 girls from there.

Has two levels, I like to go up the stairs and when it's relatively busy find a spot with good cushioned chairs, the ones with tables which seat 2. Ideally it would already have a hottie sitting there so I'd sit with her, do my stuff like writing or doing crossword puzzles, open with an elderly.

The coffee is literally awful though and I would never buy anything there. It does have a nice warm, cosy atmosphere and I usually dislike bright lighting but it's decently well done. The bathroom combination is 1851. But I decided I had to try and find other spots, because often I felt like there were no girls and also I disliked Starbucks being pro-fag. This still remains the most popular spot I've found, maybe Gloria Jeans on Lorne Street rivals it.


The Shelf, High St



This was actually recommended by a few people, so I figured I'd go. It's quite restauranty or like a place to eat, they actually had menus and sit down tables. The trouble was there wasn't a couch area and the seats were these hard plastic ones. I figured I would not be bothered sticking around. Apparently it's voted for having some of the best food in some media magazine, so whatever. I was asking for some "hip" places but all I saw were some Asian international students and/or middle aged/old people. No thanks. It's also much smaller than I thought- probably can only seat 25 and there were only 7 or so when I was in.


Chuffed, High St

Another one on High Street. Was also recommended by a few people and apparently it has decent food too. Could not find it anywhere, so I gave up for today assuming that if I can't find it it must be bad. I ended up going to Unity Bookstore(a relatively indie but still big[for NZ] bookstore) and found Donald Trump's Time to Get Tough in the business section. It was $40 so I figured I'd just read it there for free. Spent about 30 minutes in an uncomfortable seat skimming some of it, reading some of it. Marginally better than Crippled America, for light reading I guess. Art of the Deal is significantly better than either book though.

Caffe Madison, Lorne St



I didn't go there this afternoon actually. My friend/s took me there once, and they had this cool "outdoor" area when you go inside and go through another door, where generally people smoke. I'm a non smoker and I dislike the smell of smoke yet it's still a decent spot. It's outdoors in the sense that it's exposed to the air etc but it's still "inside" a building. There are also heaters that you can sit next to. I can't remember what the girls who would go would be like but if it's an awful place to game girls, it's still a great place to take them on a date. The staff is all Asian in case that makes a difference.

Gloria Jean's, Lorne St



The only place on this list that rivals Starbucks in popularity. There was a row of couches, and had mini shitty tables that if you don't mind being a little uncomfortable you can do a little work on. There's also standard cafe tables with worse-than-couch seating that have proper tables that you can actually do work in. I didn't see any hotties on this round but it's got the highest hopes of there being hotties in it. Apparently the students at the nearby universities like to study there, but I didn't really see any.

Esquires, at Auckland Public Library, Lorne St



When typing this up and finding pictures etc I actually discovered there were two Esquires on this street, within just a few metres of each other. Just my luck that I didn't go to the one people recommended(most likely) and went to the shitty one instead. I did go to the "Esquires at Lorne Street" so I guess you can understand the confusion.

There was a nice couch row with actually good tables in it. There was battleship, guess who, and snakes and ladders you can play. Among the many pamphlets they had a "Cafe Philosophy" mini newspaper thing. The May edition was anti-Trump as their 2nd/3rd page(The first/cover page was relatively blank). Talking bullshit about how Trump only tells the truth ~8% of the time or something according to biased politifact.com, while the Dems fared much better. Etc also talks about Bernie favorably compared to Shillary(but both favorably compared to Trump).

It also had news about how China, then Germany and the UK were the most pro-(Syrian)refugee. My BS sensor went up at China. Was a story from the Japan times and "no data could be found from Japan". There was also a hipster clothing store ad/sponsorship at the end. It was big enough that perhaps the hipster clothing store actually owned the "paper". When I went to return it I actually had to laugh as the rest of the papers were graffitied with these phrases:

ie bullshit opinions
ie banal obvservations
ie ridiculous views of the world
ie bullshit.

While I don't agree with tagging, I have to smile/laugh and appreciate there's some sense left in the world.

Place also had pop music playing, which I enjoyed. I can't remember if the other places had music playing also, they probably weren't loud enough for me to hear well anyway.

Presumably the other one is better and has university students studying there too.