The Drinkmore Cafe was a coffee shop on

Capitol Hill Capitol Hill, in addition to being a metonym for the United States Congress, is the largest historic residential neighborhood in Washington, D.C., stretching easterly in front of the United States Capitol along wide avenues. It is one of the ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

History

Opened on April 1, 2000, as the Bit Star, it was reported by

InfoWorld ''InfoWorld'' (abbreviated IW) is an information technology media business. Founded in 1978, it began as a monthly magazine. In 2007, it transitioned to a web-only publication. Its parent company today is International Data Group, and its siste ...

to be the first commercial business to offer free wireless internet

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wave ...

services. Although few had the equipment necessary to take advantage of this, free wireless internet became a major component of the small coffee shop business model across America. The Drinkmore was owned and run by software executive and Seattle mayoral candidate Scott Kennedy. It was the headquarters of

Seattle Wireless Seattle Wireless was an American non-profit project created by Matt Westervelt and Ken Caruso in June 2000.Cave, Damien"Unchaining the Net" ''Salon.com'', 2000-12-01 It seeks to develop a free, locally owned wireless community network using widely ...

and was the Howard Dean meetup spot during his 2004 presidential campaign. The cafe's original location, a 1905 "Dye Works" warehouse at the corner of Bellevue Avenue East and Thomas Street, was demolished in 2014 by the property owner to make way for new condominiums.Robert Hathaway, "The end of the line for The Drinkmore", ''

Queen Anne & Magnolia News The Pacific Publishing Company Publication Division produces print and digital editions serving the numerous neighborhood communities throughout Seattle. Its print editions include ''The Queen Anne'' and ''Magnolia News'', ''Madison Park Times'' ...

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Archived

References

External links

* 1998 establishments in Washington (state) Coffeehouses and cafés in Seattle Restaurants established in 1998 Restaurants in Seattle {{US-restaurant-stub