I first met Mike and Gretchen when I was 18 and came in to the Cafe via my volunteer work with TheFoundry, which was Speakeasy’s technology education venture that connected community volunteers with students from the Puget Sound Community School.
I was a Team Leader in the National Service program City Year, and having our office in Belltown quickly drew us to the Speakeasy Cafe as a community meeting room for our service partners.
‘Enchanted’ barely describes how I felt about the mission of the Cafe and ISP. I used Usenet in high school, and had Prodigy and AOL, but hadn’t really considered being able to get a job in this realm until seeing the modem bank behind the counter at the Cafe.
— Edward Bender