Recently visited the Chat Room for the first time. There won't be a second visit. Prices alone will keep me away. Charging $5 for a used book is over the top even for a tourist town like Lincoln. Drive down the street to the thrift shop and get them for at least half that and frequently less. Two stars is a gift for this place. read more

Sounds like a lot of snobby tourists making jerky reviews on this place. We love our Chatroom and the ppl there are wonderful! This is my go-to place with any questions about my computer and always helped beyond any other place I could go to. LOVE our small town Chat-room that others have tried to copy in town. Prices are cheap...no idea what these snobby tourists are talking about. They love to try to take over our town and want their shoes spit-shined, while rude to all the locals here. I've watched the tourists take over our town for over 20 years and they are the rudest ppl I have ever known! This is a staple in our town and we love this place. We locals use this place regularly and appreciate our computer business. Ty for those whom appreciate the locals to what used to be a small town before the tourists decided to take over. read more

My fiance, who is a New Hampshire native, and I love to peruse new/used bookstores, and since we were going up to Lincoln to see the Ice Castles and eat at a little restaurant, we decided to look for a bookstore that we could haunt until we got hungry. We decided on Chat Room Coffee House. We made a poor decision. When first walking into the establishment, one is assaulted with the pungent undercurrent of mildewed carpet, metal, and dust. Lots of dust. The only employee on duty said to us, "Hey. If you need help, let me know," and then proceeded to watch YouTube/surf Facebook on his computer and make small talk with someone on his phone. My fiance and I exchanged a look before beginning our browse. The first things we looked over were CDs dating all the way back to the early 90s, some cases coated with grimy dust that stuck to my fingers. Underneath the metal cage-bin holding those sat cassette tapes from the dawn of portable music, also with a bonus of dust. VHS tapes and DVDs sat on the shelves around two sides of the bin. Xbox, PS1, Windows 95, and Game Cube games lined the next shelf. These selections in and of themselves are fine and can frequently be seen in used bookstores, especially ones that are independently owned and operated. Coming from Maine, I know all about independent businesses and the pride they take in the fact that they can hold that label while making a profit. Chat Room Coffee House cannot hold any amount of pride considering the state of neglect in which its back portions currently fester. Books sat in boxes unsorted, piled up against the shelves, hanging off other books' tops as they balanced there, and lay against each other in sad positions all screaming for an end to their misery. The most common genres I found fell under either Suburban-Housewife-Book-Club, romance, thriller, and Stephen King. (Yes, he is his own genre. Let's face it.) Things like science fiction and even YA, the store would have near-to-none of those. Almost as if a pox upon its houses, not a single interesting book lay in sight. My fiance turned the corner to make his way between two shelves, and he bumped a large box sitting directly in the aisle, knocking it over onto the floor. When attempting to pick it up and clear the path, the sole employee said, and I quote, "Just leave it there. I'll get to it." In the back, we dodged and nearly fell over old TVs, printers, and monitors laying harum-skarum on the floor. So amidst the boxes we saw around each shelf's bend, we made a plan to run to the door as quickly as possible should a fire occur. Safety is a plague upon Chat Room Coffee House's fields. Now, decor can be quirky, especially for a store that is independent. However, when the decor happens to be computers, computer parts, and open-faced motherboards, the macabre feeling of taxidermied technology instills in one an unsettling chill. Why not monitor screens sans the glass with book covers or scenes behind them? Like a digital reading of the book? Why not something fun and original, instead of feeling as if the owner needed an idea and said, "Here, tack up some of these old things and whatever and stuff," mumbling incoherent directions as he walked away. The decision to abandon my search for any decent book whatsoever came threefold: the first hit as I perused the tiny sliver of one row on a shelf deemed "Classics." Virgil sat on this shelf, coated in dust. But not a single volume of Dickens, Austen, Bronte, or even Eliot could be found. I have been to countless used bookstores across the country. No matter how small, there is always a copy of Dickens and Austen, and at least one Bronte to be had. The absolute curiosity and perplexed feeling running through my head deepened upon the next decision-to-abandon. As usual in a used bookstore, boxes of semi-unsorted books leaned against the shelves in spots. (And as previously stated, these boxes were abundant here and haphazardly stacked.) I dug through these, wiping more dust yet onto my pants, and found that not only was I seeing repeats of books that currently sat on the shelves, but repeats of novels in other boxes. If I had picked up one more Dan Koontz novel, I thought I would explode. I think I found a total of maybe ten fantasy novels, which brings me to the last straw. The poorly-lettered signs stuck on the walls next to the massacred technology bits told what kind of books you'd find in certain areas. Of course, we've gone over the variety, or lack thereof. What pounded the last nail into my experience's coffin was how the establishment had decided to spell the word "fantasy." As follows: Fantacy. F-a-n-t-a-c-y. Chat Room Coffee House, you are both a place with Internet and books. Surely the word "fantasy" was to be found around your fire-hazard floors and shelves. We left. Only later did we realize that "coffee house" too stretched the truth. Coffee house, in this case, equals gas-station quality coffee carafes. Well done, CRCH. Well done. read more

Contrary to the other review, this business is very helpful...the owner is very pleasant and repairs the computer you are frustrated with....may I suggest, that if the previous reviewer ran into rudeness, it was because the owner Does employ those with mental disabilities....as to the clutter, it is a second hand bookstore......that is part of the appeal.... read more

Extremely rude staff. Very cluttered store, highly expensive prices. Guys were quite ignorant and snippy towards us. Asked a question and he actually asked us WHY we were interested in that subject. Rude rude rude.... read more