The thrust of the coffeehouse culture is to develop an informal public gathering place, operators say. Besides offering a dozen or more specialty coffee drinks, the places provide fast-track Silicon Valley residents with a comfortable setting to relax, socialize, read, study, and maybe listen to a little music, poetry or literature. They offer evening events for atmosphere, promotion and to stretch peak business hours. Patrons like Jim Rickel, an electronics company salesman, prefer coffeehouses to bars for their listening enjoyment. While there's long been an active folk scene in San Francisco, Berkeley and Santa Cruz, the South Bay is only recently starting to catch up, said Dave Perasso, a leader of South Bay Folks, an association of folk and acoustic musicians and music lovers that promotes folk music.
Many people perform for exposure rather than pay.
Each performer is allowed 15 minutes or three songs. Rough is a good example. The casual, non-intimidating ambience of coffeehouses also provides a setting for aspiring writers to voice their original verses and passages. First Time Publishing in Cupertino, has started groups for poets and writers at Coffee Society to give authors a chance for some exposure. The information you receive on-line from Mercury Center is protected by the copyright laws of the United States.