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Hemingway Cafe in Dumaguete offers a unique, quiet sanctuary designed to be a haven for neurodivergent and introverted individuals, prioritizing a calm environment through conscious design choices and a supportive community.
The video explores Hemingway Cafe in Dumaguete, a unique establishment designed to be the quietest cafe in the city, catering specifically to neurodivergent individuals and introverts. The owner, Jerry, who has ADHD and autism, conceptualized the cafe to combat his own overstimulation and anxiety caused by noise and crowds. The cafe's mission extends beyond providing a quiet space; it aims to foster a sense of community and break the stigma surrounding mental health and neurodivergence in the Philippines.
Hemingway Cafe implements several conscious design choices to maintain its tranquil atmosphere. These include specific acoustic treatments like panels and paint, strategic furniture placement to create clear paths, and a policy limiting tables to a maximum of two people. The owner, a former sound engineer, applied his expertise to the cafe's acoustics, ensuring sound is absorbed and minimized. Additionally, the cafe prioritizes hiring neurodivergent and deaf staff, creating an inclusive and understanding environment for both employees and patrons.
The cafe's name, 'Hemingway' (spelled with two M's), is a deliberate choice symbolizing its function: to 'hem' thoughts, providing a space where individuals can calm down, relax, and ground themselves. This concept is particularly relevant in today's loud world, where silence is considered a luxury. The cafe's hours, menu, and location are also tailored to its target audience, with late opening hours and a focus on basic cafe fare and matcha. The video highlights the positive reception from the neurodivergent community and suggests that such spaces are a much-needed innovation that could spread.
The cafe's 'Ten Commandments' or rules are derived from the owner's personal preferences and a survey of other neurodivergent individuals, focusing on minimizing noise and visual distractions. The response from the community has been largely positive, with many finding it to be a much-needed sanctuary. While some neurotypical patrons have also appreciated the calm environment, the cafe's core audience consists of those who have felt overwhelmed by typical cafe settings, finally finding a place they can truly call their own.
Hemingway Cafe in Dumaguete is designed to be the quietest cafe in the city, specifically catering to neurodivergent individuals and introverts. Its owner, Jerry, conceptualized the space to combat overstimulation and anxiety often found in typical noisy environments. The cafe prioritizes a peaceful atmosphere through conscious design and a supportive community.
Yes, Hemingway Cafe is intentionally designed to be neurodivergent friendly, offering a sanctuary from overstimulation. The cafe incorporates acoustic engineering, specific furniture choices, and a two-person table limit to foster a peaceful and calming atmosphere. They also actively hire neurodivergent and deaf staff, creating an inclusive environment.
Hemingway Cafe minimizes noise through several design choices, including acoustic treatments like panels and paint, and strategic furniture placement. The cafe also enforces a policy limiting tables to a maximum of two people to reduce overall sound levels. The owner, a former sound engineer, applied his expertise to ensure sound is absorbed and minimized.
The mission of Hemingway Cafe is to provide a quiet sanctuary for neurodivergent individuals and introverts, breaking the stigma around mental health and neurodivergence in the Philippines. It aims to create a safe space for community, conversation, and a much-needed luxury of silence in a loud world.
The cafe is named 'Hemingway' with two M's to symbolize its purpose: to 'hem' thoughts, preventing them from unraveling in a loud world. This name reflects the cafe's core function of providing a calming space where individuals can relax and ground themselves. It highlights the luxury of silence that the cafe offers.
The primary target audience for Hemingway Cafe includes neurodivergent individuals and introverts who often feel overwhelmed by typical cafe environments. However, anyone seeking a quiet, calming, and sensory-friendly cafe experience is also welcome and likely to appreciate its unique atmosphere.
Yes, Hemingway Cafe has a set of rules called the 'Ten Commandments'. These rules were developed based on the owner's personal preferences and feedback from other neurodivergent individuals. They focus on minimizing noise and visual distractions to maintain the cafe's quiet atmosphere.
0:02 I'm born and raised in Dumaguete. Silence isn't such a bad thing, just to break the stigma. Those rules are like what I don't want personally because, call it the Ten Commandments of having way. Actually, I graduated as a sound engineer. Nobody knows what a sound engineer does in the Philippines. I finally found a client that can afford me. The world now is a very loud place, and silence is a luxury.
0:28 Hey YouTube, Alex here. And in today's video, we're going down to the Hemingway Cafe here in Dumaguete, in the Daro neighborhood. Hemingway is a quiet cafe. Everything is set up to be quiet for people who are neurodivergent or who are introverted. It's a really relaxing space. On a side note, this is the business that I'm most excited about here in Dumaguete. I found my experience there to be very calming. I noticed one positive recent review said that after they spent some time there, it felt like they had gotten a massage.
1:02 If you're in Dumaguete, or even if you're in other parts of the Philippines, I recommend going to check it out if you want a quiet space. I loved it, and I will definitely be going back there. The owner, Jerry, is a really thoughtful guy. He's really put a lot into this cafe, you can tell. If you go there, everything is meticulously planned, and I look forward to returning soon.
1:27 Without further ado, it may sound like we are whispering, but we were only doing so to be considerate of the customers in the establishment. Let's get to meet Jerry. Thank you so much for having us today. We're here at the Hemingway Cafe. I want to take an opportunity to introduce you to the owner here. He's going to share a bit about himself and the cafe.
1:50 Hey, I'm Jerry. I'm the owner of Hemingway Coffee Lounge. To start off, I think I should say that I was diagnosed as ADHD and autism a couple of years back, maybe three years back. I think that started why I conceptualized a place like this to help me with my overstimulation. I have severe anxiety when it comes to noise and overcrowding.
2:34 I think that's why it's not usual to have a place in the Philippines like this. So that's why I saw the problem and I was trying to find a solution, and this is Hemingway.
2:47 How has the response been so far? Do you feel the response has been mixed at first. The ND community has been loving it so far. I've had people come here and say they've been waiting for a place like this to open in Dumaguete. Some neurotypical people have also come here, checked it out, and realized, 'Huh, this isn't silence isn't such a bad thing. Being alone with your thoughts is not such a bad thing.'
3:30 Being in a place that's actually not overstimulating is actually good. Although there are people who still prefer to have loud music, loud conversations, or even like groups at a table, because we're limiting other people sitting at the table to a maximum of two people, to minimize the possibility of them being too noisy or too rowdy.
4:10 There are some people who came here in the first few weeks who never came back. Those were the people who, how do I put this, slightly, those are the people who are okay with other establishments. They have their place, they already claim their own place in other cafes or restaurants. The people who came here and keep coming back, I think they finally found their place, a place they can finally claim their own, especially the introverts and the neurodivergent.
4:51 To me, it's incredible. I've been to many different establishments here in the Philippines, and you know, I find the culture here to be very welcoming, friendly, and fun-loving. But I'm also prone to overstimulation. I'm prone to getting racing thoughts or wanting to just slow my mind down.
5:21 I know I'll definitely be a regular here. I'm also telling my friends about it because it's just very welcomed, but also very unexpected. Do you feel like a cafe like this can help?
5:40 I'm Asian-American, and I think that often we don't talk about mental health in our community. The younger generations are changing that. Do you feel like a cafe like this can help to kind of start some of those conversations, talking about things like autism or ADHD?
6:03 If you check our page on Instagram and Facebook, before we opened this, we were putting up infographics about neurodivergence, autism, ADHD, bipolar, and the likes. That's definitely one of Hemingway's goals moving forward, just to break the stigma of mental health, especially in the Philippines. To let people know that it's not made up, it's real people experiencing it, and that it's okay to talk about it. There's nothing shameful to talk about it or to admit that, or to have yourself diagnosed.
7:03 Another goal that we want to have here is for the neurodivergent to know that there are other people like us in the community. We hardly see each other because we hardly go to these kinds of places. We don't have these kinds of places at all. So it's nice to have. I've met a few people who came here and said that, and messaged the page saying, 'Hey, I'm Andy, and thank you.'
7:38 There are more than 10 people who have already messaged like from Dumaguete. Yeah, could you excuse me for a while? I need to let them. Going back, I think this would help neurodivergence have a sense of community, and hopefully, we'll see where it goes from there.
8:05 You have eight rules here that I think you put a lot of thought into. What made you choose those rules over other rules? What kind of prompted you to set those boundaries?
8:36 Well, first of all, those rules are like what I don't want personally. What makes me overstimulated is the noise, and visually, people moving around fast and changing tables. That's one of the reasons why I chose to do this. Second reason is I did a survey online, asked other neurodivergents what they would want to implement if they had a place. It's funny because most of us have similar wants and things we don't want.
9:25 So I looked at all those answers and said, 'Okay, so these 10 are probably the most important ones.' So that's why we call it the Ten Commandments of Hemingway. So yeah, I have a lot of positive feelings about Dumaguete.
9:49 But there's also a lot of wonderful places in the Philippines. Why choose Dumaguete over, I don't know, maybe a different place? Are you from here in Dumaguete? I'm born and raised in Dumaguete.
10:09 So, if I had to choose, I mean, start here. And also, I think it's much more expensive to start in bigger cities. So, I mean, at least make an impact in my hometown.
10:29 I know that you have the ground rules here, but I also sense that you've made some conscious choices in decor. This might be the quietest place I've been in this entire city, and I've lived here for six months. What are some of the conscious choices of furniture? You mentioned not wanting people to be kind of rushing around. How does the furniture contribute to fostering a peaceful environment?
10:55 Well, number one, the layout is set in a way that there are visible paths, big enough paths for people to pass by and not squeeze themselves between tables. If you noticed, there are visible paths you can go through and not bump other people. We're limiting people to two people per table, so that's also one thing that makes it less cluttered.
11:40 I actually graduated as a sound engineer from Berkeley, Boston. So I applied what I learned there in acoustics with these acoustic panels, acoustic paints, acoustic flooring. It also helps with how the noise and the sound works inside. I even joked with the staff that because I never had a job as a sound engineer here in the Philippines, nobody knows what a sound engineer does. So I joke to them, 'I finally found a client that can afford me.'
12:29 Yeah, even the paint is acoustic paint. The panels, I purposely chose wood rather than metal for the tables because it also absorbs some sound. The materials, yeah. So when you ask me how much consideration I did, I did a lot of consideration in terms of the materials used.
12:55 You mentioned hiring neurodivergent staff. Was it important to you as part of your mission to bring on board people that you could understand or relate to?
13:10 Yeah, that's actually one of the things when we started the application process. I didn't specify that if you were neurodivergent, you could apply here. But going through the applications, I actually, if I remember correctly, most of the applicants I went through and interviewed, it was during the interview period when I started to mentally check off those boxes. 'Okay, he can talk well.' He's one of the baristas, actually. It's funny because I put a note on her interview sheet: 'Clearly ADHD.' As we were doing the interview, you could see just looking around, listening, she can answer my questions. She was just talking like, 'Okay, he has a bigger chance of getting in here.'
14:33 So from close to 100 applicants, we got it down to about six. And then those six were, if not officially diagnosed, then peer-reviewed.
14:56 And aside from that, we also got...
15:01 But we also got some deaf people here to work, so it's not just accommodating for people with mental health things. We also accommodate for the physical and, dare I say, emotional trauma.
15:31 Yeah, I don't know if that makes sense. You're making perfect sense. I've already had one friend get really excited. I just told him about it tonight before I came here, and he said, 'Does such a place really exist?' He's another foreigner like myself, and I suspect neurodivergent. I haven't asked him about that, but I just kind of have my suspicion.
15:59 This has got to be like the first of its kind. I mean, I've never heard of it. It's very, very early, but I envision a future where this is more common, that this kind of idea spreads around because it's so hard to find a place like this.
16:18 What are your hours, what do you serve, and how can people find you? Okay, so we open. Our hours are from 12 noon to 12:00 midnight. I specifically chose those times because I usually wake up around 11:00, and I know most people also wake up late or have a hard time waking up early.
16:43 Our brains usually function more from this time to midnight or even to early morning, so that's why I chose that. For now, we are serving some pastries and cookies, just basic cafe food, basic coffees, and some matcha because it's been heavily requested by people to have matcha here, and some loose leaf teas.
17:27 If you want to come and check us out, we are in Diego de Street, NST building. You can just Google us and find us there. When you're here in the area, you can just look up and find the 'H'. People have been dubbing it the bat signal for neurodivergence, like look up, find the 'H', and you're going to be home.
17:57 Well, thank you so much for introducing this. Can you share any final thoughts or final words for us tonight before we wrap up? So, I just realized I never explained why I call it Hemingway in the first place. So, just to bring it full circle, I call it Hemingway not because of the author, not about Ernest Hemingway. If you can notice, it's a different spelling. I spelled it with two M's.
18:28 Our Hemingway is two M's, so it's more on, you know what the hem is, right? Like for the cloth, a hem is usually there so that the cloth won't run or the thread in the cloth won't run. So that's why we call this Hemingway, because this is the place for our thoughts to hem our thoughts, so that it won't run and we can calm down, relax, be grounded, and probably be a beautiful sleeve or something.
19:05 Yeah, it's just so that our thoughts won't unravel that much outside, because the world now is a very loud place, and silence is a luxury now. So, Hemingway, because it's to hem our thoughts, make it smooth and clean.
19:34 That's it, and I hope people will get to experience this and be at peace. Well, thank you so much. We really appreciate you joining us tonight. It's been a pleasure. I know I'll be coming back here again and again. I'll be telling all of my friends about it.
20:07 You know, it's like, I don't know how to explain it. It's such a, I feel like I'm wrapped up in a cozy blanket on a very cold day. I feel like I'm drinking hot chocolate.
20:29 Anyway, please come check out Hemingway and get a chance to meet the lovely staff. And if you're a hardcore introvert and neurodivergent like me, you'll feel right at home here. So thanks so much, everybody. We'll see you soon.
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