Tag: quantum

21st Century Tech at 20th Century Prices?

Posted on by jasondeane in The Cafe Archives

Another blog originally posted on the now defunct quantumwebcafe.com blog site making a case for keeping the prices in the cafe as they were – unchanged for an impressive 17 years!

We had a complaint the other day.

We don’t get them very often, so they do stand out when they come along. This one was about our prices. Apparently, they’re too high.

Of course, we’ve never competed on the ‘pile it high and sell it cheap’ approach that almost every internet cafe did back in the day and instead focused on good quality and secure equipment, customer service and a nice environment. It’s much harder to manage, much more expensive to run and you need to maintain a good team at all times to make it work (also very tough), but in my view it’s worth it. It always has been. Continue reading “21st Century Tech at 20th Century Prices?” →

So, why Retro Gaming?

Posted on by jasondeane in The Cafe Archives

It’s a fair question, and one that comes up from time to time. Why, at Quantum Web Cafe, the UK’s longest running internet cafe and games zone, do we mainly provide retro gaming on the PCs?

Well, first, we’d better clarify our own generalization. There are actually modern games installed on the PCs as well, but these are mostly on-line role playing or strategy games such as World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Hearthstone, Diablo III, Star Wars The Old Republic and so on. And many games, such as Dota 2, Counterstrike GO, Team Fortress 2 and so on are regardless as current classics, still played by millions and also installed ready to go on the PCs in the gameszone. Day of Defeat Source, the Half Life variations, Left for Dead 1 and 2 aren’t arguably old enough yet to be called truly retro, but it won’t be long!

Continue reading “So, why Retro Gaming?” →

Zen and the art of job applications

Posted on by jasondeane in The Cafe Archives

It’s not often we recruit at Quantum Web Cafe, but it does seem we are recruiting for aaaagggeeesss sometimes. We do take our time, that’s for sure. And for good reason. First, most people struggle to follow the application process and rule themselves out at the first hurdle, and second, well, to be frank, we’re a bit fussy about who we let loose on our customers.

We’ve been around now for twenty years and, at our peak, with several high street locations, we had 23 employees. If you do the maths, we’ve hired over two hundred people over those two decades. Continue reading “Zen and the art of job applications” →

So which is it? Quarks or Quantum?

Posted on by jasondeane in The Cafe Archives

Confused? Don’t be!

Remember how ‘Marathon’ rebranded to ‘Snickers?’ or ‘Jif’ rebranded to ‘Cif’? or ‘Oil of Ulay’ to ‘Oil of Olay’? Well, this is absolutely nothing like that.

First, those rebrands were all completely ridiculous, cost thousands, even millions, of pounds, second, they were unnecessary and even annoying from a consumer’s point of view and, finally, these were products that are purchased by thousands of people daily. we, on the other hand, have one café in the centre of Reading which serves four people daily, half of whom have come in by accident because they are looking for the cobblers that closed down ten years ago.

Ok, so that last bit may be a tiny bit understated for comedy effect, but the fact is the café has definitely changed name. I can prove it too … Continue reading “So which is it? Quarks or Quantum?” →

What is a Quark anyway?

Posted on by jasondeane in The Cafe Archives

Originally published in June 2013, this blog was transferred over from the now defunct ‘quantumwebcafe.com’ site before it’s closure in 2019. The cafes were originally called ‘Quarks’ but were later rebranded to ‘Quantum’ when the name was sold with the Guildford branch in 2014.

One of the things we are asked most is where our name came from. The formal definitions and history are shown below, but the idea was that since a quark is compenent of all matter, it’s a quantum version of what we represent in the real world. In other words, we, as a physical premises, are a gateway to the rest of the world via the internet. We are a mere component of something far greater. Deep isn’t it? There’s that and the fact we thought it was really snazzy sounding.

Here’s the formal definition: Continue reading “What is a Quark anyway?” →