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James Cox tosses out a bunch of neat ideas about coffee shop work and co-working arrangements for solo folks.

I really like my regular 9-5 job, partly because I'm allowed quite a bit of flexibility -- and in return they get a lot more than 40 hours a week of work out of me. A fair deal, I believe. But, I still have the poet's soul and daydream about solo life once in a while. I've done it three different times -- once for 8 years when my kids were little, but I needed more structure. Even the couple of years when I had a great little office over a storefront, I'd indulge in naps and novels when I was there.

So, it wasn't just that I needed a place to go. I needed a place to go where there were other people. And as James says, even better if they are inspiring likeminded people.

Have you ever looked into the London coffeehouses. People did business at them for ages, but they must have faded in mid-19th century? Not sure. I'll try to find some links. Here's one for starters.

Almost from their inception, the London coffee-houses each began to develop its own specialised clientele, and each soon became identified as the meeting place for a particular occupation, interest group, or type of specialised activity. By and large, the type of clientele was determined by the area of London in which the coffee-house was located. Coffee-houses such as Lloyd's or Garraway's, located in the area around the Royal Exchange, were, for example, the gathering places for businessmen of the city, and those such as the St. James and Cocoa-Tree, located in Westminster, were frequented by politicians. Many of the coffee-houses near St. Paul's Cathedral were the haunts of clergymen and intellectuals who gathered to discuss theology and philosophy. Some coffee-houses became so identified with specific groups or interests that an early London newspaper, The Tatler, printed its stories under coffee-house headings.

J. Pelzer and L. Pelzer, "Coffee Houses of Augustan London," History Today, October 1982, pp. 40-47.

Lloyd's of London started out life in a coffeehouse!

I think you could even rent booths and services. It must have been a considerable step down from having a real office. Seems like Mr Sedley in Vanity Fair was embarrassed to conduct his business in one when his company got in trouble and he didn't have an office anymore.