Cafe Society
Within the last few years, more than 1,200 “cybercafes”--offering interactive services alongside espresso--have sprung up around the globe. Most are holes in the wall; there are no cybercafe equivalents of the branded “eatertainment” chains such as Planet Hollywood and Hard Rock Cafe.
That’s where Apple Computer was supposed to come in. At a splashy Beverly Hills event a year ago, Apple announced it would license its name to create a global chain of branded cybercafes. North Hollywood-based Landmark Entertainment was to design and build the locations, with the first one to open on the Westside by late 1997.
One year and hundreds of millions in Apple Computer losses later, plans for the Apple Cafe are on hold, most likely indefinitely.
“Other things have taken priority. . . . We’re just focusing on being profitable,” says Chris VanHoy, Apple’s senior manager in charge of brand licensing.
The Apple Cafe was a longtime dream of Jon Holtzman’s. The former Apple worldwide brand marketing director is one of the many senior executives who have left the computer maker in the last year. Holtzman has now formed his own Menlo Park, Calif.-based brand marketing firm, Eclipse Worldwide. He says he thinks the idea would still fly with the right brand.
“Cybercafes today are very technocentric. . . . People are tending to think, ‘How much money can there be in just renting equipment?’ You have to make it more [of] an entertainment zone, where you’re making money on the food, the tchotchkes,” Holtzman said, adding that there are still investors seeking to back a brand like (a pre-1997) Apple.
“It has to be a brand with large consumer appeal, that stands for fun. It could be a magazine, a Wired, a Yahoo. A consumer electronics brand. Apple . . . was youth-driven and fun. The problem with Apple was [that] it was going down the drain.”
Others have wrestled with how to approach the concept. Cybersmith would like to become one of the first national chains. So far, though, it has only four locations: two in Boston, one in White Plains, N.Y., and one in Palo Alto, with a Los Angeles location scheduled to open in the spring.
It stresses technology over “eatertainment,” although it does offer things such as birthday party packages (including computer time, party favors and a cake) at $15 to $30 per person.
The six-club House of Blues chain has tried temporary Java Joint areas within its clubs, but it’s taking a wait-and-see attitude.
“We’ve looked at it, but I don’t know that we’re convinced of the overall business strategy,” said Chris Stephenson, senior vice president of marketing for House of Blues Entertainment in West Hollywood.
Stephenson said new developments in technology that make computers smaller and less intrusive could sway him. “The problem today is that you’re more or less transporting the office into the cafe,” Stephenson said.
