Internet cafe model taking root in Ozarks

Area businesses are building on the idea of serving customers that are both hungry and hungering for connectivity.

Click ‘N Sip Internet Café, 607 State Highway 165 in Branson, opened in late 2003. Manager Rebekah Bean said the store has experienced success with its offerings of high-speed Internet access and specialty coffee drinks.

“We have Wi-Fi where they can bring their own (computer), and we also have 12 cubicles that we rent out,” she said. “It’s been a great atmosphere. We serve specialty coffee drinks, biscotti, danishes and things like that, and it’s been very popular.”

Owner Richard Rabah also owns the neighboring Inter-linc.net LLC, which offers dial-up and high-speed Internet access to home and business users. The company also supplies the Web access for the café. Additionally, the two businesses complement each other by offering perks at one business for customers of the other; Inter-linc.net customers get a free drink each month at the Click ‘N Sip.

Café customers pay $5 for every 30 minutes of Internet usage, or they can buy larger blocks of time for a savings. The café has portals to hook up laptop computers, as well as 12 cubicles for customers who don’t have computers of their own.

Rabah was unavailable for comment for this story, and Jason Miller, operations manager for the businesses, declined to discuss company revenues.

Miller did say, however, that the company is looking to expand into new markets: Oklahoma City and Eureka Springs, Ark.

“The owner is down (in Oklahoma City) looking at buildings right now,” Miller said. “The new location would also be a joint venture, where Inter-linc would be offering (its) services to the community as well as to Click ‘N Sip.”

The business would not be a franchise – Rabah would own the new locations, with Miller running the operations. The company hopes to be up and running in Oklahoma City in the next two to three months, with Eureka Springs to follow.

But Branson doesn’t have a corner on the Internet café market. Several Springfield establishments – Panera Bread among them – also have picked up on the idea.

Panera Bread offers Wi-Fi access at all of its Springfield locations; it’s a service that franchise group Traditional Bakery Inc. has offered in all of its eateries in southwest Missouri, northwest Arkansas and the Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Okla., areas, for the last six months.

Renee Eiffert, director of marketing for Traditional Bakery, said Panera’s corporate offices in St. Louis began looking into offering Internet access two years ago.

“Customer response has been incredible. Panera suggested that everyone offer it as a free service to our guests, and it’s very popular,” Eiffert said. “In all of our markets, we have businesses – basically independent one-man shops or freelance people – who use our bakery-cafés as an office. They come in, they use our Wi-Fi, they have their meetings there, and we’re happy to have them do that.”

She added that the program works well because of the company’s intentionally laid-back atmosphere.

“In the food service business, you’re trying to move as many people through in a given time as possible, because that’s how you make money, but we don’t push that as much,” Eiffert said. “People can come in and linger and have a cup of coffee in the morning and get on the Internet. I think it’s great for everybody.”