CB 1

Exactly what I was looking for! Climatic interior, unobtrusive background music, delicious mocha, comfy chairs, great location — absolutely perfect for a quiet afternoon with a book. I wouldn’t recommend sitting downstairs, though.

One of the oldest internet café’s in the world! I came here for a business meeting and had decent service, a great cappuccino, and a really nice salad and falafel for lunch. Sit upstairs, it’s more interesting and has more light.
A fun quirky and cool place that reminded me of high school. CB1 is awesome.

Coffee is average. Food is pretty decent.

As good as it gets. Cozy, comfortable, eclectic café with a lot of tables, decent lighting, and really good music. Cool café colleagues too. The pastries are the best in Cambridge — which is sad really because Cambridge needs a decent bakery (are there no French entrepreneurs here? Le Gros Franck is too far!). If you want a delicious slice of carrot cake, an American-​sized cupcake, or chocolate cake with caramelized almonds and ganache, go to CB1. The baked goods selection changes because everything is baked fresh, and there’s often a vegan or gluten-​free item or two.
Staff is as hip as any found in SF or Berkeley.

The world’s oldest internet café!
Latin-​quarter feel amidst books and computers from all generations. Intellectuals there for meetings, and to read the paper, to check their e-​mails and have a good cup of coffee.

CB1 is the World’s Oldest Internet Café, so it’s a fitting review as this week the internet is 40 years old. HAPPY BIRTHDAY INTERNET!
CB1’s café-​cum-​bookstore has been here in operation since the early 1990s in a spot just opposite from where Sinclair Computers used to design their ZX81s and 128ks, and not far down the road from where the world’s first webcam was set-​up to watch a coffee pot brew.
The welcoming café with excellent coffee, pastry and sandwiches is dark wooden tables and chairs, walls lined with books of interest and a bar decorated with computing equipment from the past… from old Compaqs and Amstrads to classic Apples and Acorns.
CB1 has always been an intellectuals’ caffeine-​stop haven, and has never run off in the mass web café direction. Just a couple of terminals to browse with your tea, otherwise it’s bring your own laptop to dust with croissant crumbs.
Even if you never pop in, it’s worth taking a look at their website: they had this website in 1995 and froze it in about 1999 for posterity.
The announcement of a new cool service called ‘HoTMaiL’ and a list of the different search engines and how good they are (what no google?) is very cool.

Doesn’t take itself at all seriously. Actually, that’s not quite right, it takes itself just seriously enough. Nice warm feel to it, plenty of bric-​à-​brac and old books lying around and a hardcore of regulars logging in, coffee frothing it up or just shooting the shit. Bravo.

This is a really quirky place to go and have a coffee. Books galore and wierd and wonderful quirky people to meet. Although most people are usually in their books that they are reading. Its a very oldy worldy place for a coffee, not modern.

Having a coffee in CB1 is a bit like having a coffee in a jumble sale. The furniture is mix-​and-​match, the walls are covered in second-​hand books and an assortment of old-​fashioned defunct PCs are positioned throughout the main room. That said, the café does offer up-​to-​date computing facilities, a wide board game selection, and reasonable coffee at reasonable prices. The clientele can best be described as a coalition of freeks and geeks, which only adds to its charm. If you like your coffee with extra eccentricity, CB1 is the place for you.