Project Espresso

Holy bo-jangles. Time for a coffee break. Except for our writer (and twitter prankster) Joe Bagel. He just got back from visiting 40 cafés.

40 cafés?

Yeah, and he doesn’t even have a car. He got there on foot, bike, and transit.

Why’d he do it? The reason was Project Espresso.

Have you ever wanted to quickly find a place for good coffee after hopping off your bus or metro? Well starting today, you can check Transit app.

Mr. Bagel parsed through Montreal’s 700+ cafes. Using Foursqure, Yelp, blog articles, and some tips from our friends at Crew, he was able to narrow it down to the 40 best.

That’s not all. After he visited those cafés (for quality assurance), he imported them directly into Transit app.

The result? A curated map, showing you all of the best cafés nearby, along with buttons to get the café’s opening hours and directions thereto. They’re even available offline, so you can get their locations without a data plan.

But that’s not all.

Oh, so you thought this was just gonna be a fancy map of Montreal’s best coffee shops? Guess again.

It’s more than that. You see, we love our independent cafés. They’re friendlier, the coffee is better, and they’re designed to feel more like home. But there’s one part of café culture that isn’t great…

Asking the barista for the Wi-Fi password.

“Excusez-moi, est-ce que je pourrais avoir le password du Wi-Fi?”

Inevitably, the barista will sigh, and point to the “super obvious” sign on their cash register, or they’ll blurt out a sequence of letters and numbers so random that you have to ask them to write it out for you. Sometimes, they won’t even acknowledge your question…….. which can be awkward.

No longer.When Joe visited those 40 cafés (in 3 days), he was on a mission. And it wasn’t to test the quality of their americanos— which were invariably delicious.

It was to scoop up all of their Wi-Fi passwords.

Why? Because now, when you look up a café on Transit App, you can tap the “Copy Wi-Fi password” button to instantly get online.

To sign-in to a café’s Wi-Fi network, just click on the “Copy Wi-Fi password” button, paste it into the password box when connecting, and you’ll be good to go.

Before you see cafés on the map for the first time, be sure to activate them in the settings (tap the gear in the top right corner -> Wi-Fi Cafés). You only have to do it once!

Why We Did It

Here at Transit App, we’re removing the inefficiencies of urban travel by giving you all the transport information you need in one simple interface. That’s why we were voted Montreal’s #1 app in Cult Montreal’s annual reader poll.

Now, with Project Espresso, we’re getting rid of yet another inefficiency in city life: having to ask around for passwords.  Now you’ll know where to load up on coffee and Wi-Fi, even if you’re in an unfamiliar neighbourhood or don’t have data. Moreover, you can save your favourite baristas from having to answer those “super obvious” questions, and let them get back to what they’re good at — making amazing coffee.All of these passwords were collected recently, so there should be no problems connecting. If there is, send an email to Mr. Bagel (coffee at transitapp dot com)with the new password. You can also email him with café suggestions — they don’t even have to be in Montreal!

Happy exploring!

From Montreal? Download Transit App for the best coffee (and Wi-Fi) in the city.