A cup of ambition

DRINKING PROBLEMS Chart your future over coffee (or beer) at the Map Room.

Model: Keith Gallagher

Cruising Monster.com from your tiny, un–air conditioned apartment is all well and good, but there’s something about getting out of the house, grabbing a cup of coffee and taking advantage of a shop’s Wi-Fi that makes the process so much less painful. Here are the best places to grab a cozy table and call it your own for the day—without catching the stinkeye from behind some barista’s plastic-rimmed glasses.

At most places, lots of hidden nooks mean covert hookups and missed connections. The beehive of private spots at Sip (1223 W Grand Ave, 312-492-7686) serves a different function: Group meetings take place in a corner stuffed with comfy couches, solo workers slip on headphones and hide out in the shady inner courtyard, and folks generally seem to hold court all day at any table in the house. So grab the day’s papers off the rack along the wall; you’ve got all the time in the world to sift through those job ads.

Sip’s soothing seafoam-green walls and bright, airy rooms sometimes seem just too…happy. Buena Park’s Dollop Coffee Co (4181 N Clarendon Ave, 773-755-1955) has the worn-in feel of a place you’ve been going to forever. Both the big perks (a back room with plenty of space to camp out) and the small ones (Metropolis coffee and Hoosier Mama pies) set Dollop apart from the pack.

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