It's funny how obvious some people make it that they don't want business. I don't really care about power plugs or wifi when I visit a café (my battery running out is a great motivator + natural time limit, I can tether to my phone for internet) but I always pay close attention to how a new café is outfitted.
Some cafés that genuinely want your business make plugs available to the customers, some will even go as far as to put in plugs with USB adapters as well because they are making it clear: I want you to be here. Other places have no special extra plugs (just what you'd expect for a room that size) and that's fine, but some places have intentionally NO plugs and that's not an accident, that's by design.
Same thing with the wifi policy. I don't care if you have wifi, or don't have wifi, but if you aggressively block ~50% of all sites, seemingly at random, or have a time limit on usage…the message it clear, you only have Wifi so you can say "we have wifi" but you don't really mean it.
I only hope to patronize places that are welcoming, even if I'm not relying on those facilities that day. Those are the kinds of places I want to stay in business.
The kinds of places with limited internet and no plugs are the kinds of places that I don't want to be in business tomorrow, so I had better make sure not to give them a penny today.
It's not fair to say they "don't want business". They don't want certain forms of business — laptop coworkers — that in many cases are both low-profit customers and actively limit the throughput of total customers.
I had a good chat once with a guy who runs a small coffee roastery and number of fancy third-wave coffee shops in a posh university town. One of the most popular coffee shops in town went completely bankrupt and he ended up taking it over. The first thing he did was turn off the WiFi; to hear him tell it, revenue doubled or tripled overnight as soon as he did. Turns out actually having available seats can drive sales, and having a giant store in a high-rent area full of people who buy one $4 coffee and sit there for five hours isn't profitable. At the time, he was in the process of renovating half of the space to be formal paid coworking.
(I personally think there's room for middle ground. My favorite local coffee shop only allows laptops in a dedicated section, which has ample power but also higher-density seating than the normal area. When it's warm enough to sit outside, they allow laptops outside during the week but not on weekends. Another favorite coffee shop just turns the WiFi off on weekends.)
The closest café to me is a 'concept café' being run by a local coffee roaster. I'll often go <2 hours before close and grab a coffee, tip well, and sit until close. Some days if I wasn't there it would be empty, so I'm pretty sure having my body in the café brings more people through the door.
The problem with that café is their hours miss both the before-work rush, and the after-work rush, with them closing shop at 6pm. You have to be _open_ to take money.
The problem is being open costs money. In order to be profitable, you need to bring in more money than the cost of the labor, and that's after you account for cost of the product and the other fixed costs.
There is also the trouble that most of the people who will be around at close of business likely came in an hour or two earlier, so you are essentially paying someone to monitor the cafe without bringing in any new revenue.
I would think the morning before-work rush would be the best time to capture money as a coffee shop, same with the after work time. They are basically only open while working people are away from the neighbourhood and have their doors shut when the biggest rushes of people would be there.
And it's not just them, I see a lot of local businesses in this area struggling, but the problem is they aren't open to take my money at reasonable times. There's another café even closer to me that is trying to make it, but they are closed 2 days a week and it's not the weekend, I'm not sure which days they are, so it's hard to check it out. It's just baffling to me - you pay rent 24/7, you have bills every month, and staff … but if you want to take money (generate income) you have to be open. If you want to make the most money, shouldn't you try to have your doors open the most amount of time you can?
The coffee shop closest to my house has the same problem. The only times they are open are while I'm at work. They opened right about the time we moved (a little over a year ago), and we were excited to have a play we could go close by. But they are never open when it would be convenient for us.
The dumbest thing in my mind is that they are open for like 4 hours on Saturday (7am - 11am).
I think the problem with that particular coffee shop though is that they lady who owns it also runs a catering / event hosting business, so the needs of the coffee shop come last.
Some places are more explicit. There's a "no laptops" café movement now.
One where I live has a "no laptops at mealtimes" sign. If you get out a laptop, they ask you to leave. If you come during a quiet period, get out a laptop, and are still using it when reaches a mealtime, they ask you to put it away.
To be fair they do really good food, it's always packed at mealtimes, and they explain their policy is because they want to make a place where people appreciate food and conversation.
I like them and wouldn't want them to shut down.
Another place doesn't have a sign. I sat down and ordered a proper meal. Then I got my laptop out. I needed to work for the next couple of hours. Table space wasn't a problem, and it wasn't an especially posh place.
After I'd been working for 20 minutes, a waiter came over to tell me I'd have to put the laptop away. After a rather awkward conversation we agreed I could cancel my already ordered (and presumably partly cooked) meal, because I'd have to go and find another restaurant.
In Palo Alto, there’s a cafe (more or less) call Hana House that has three big sections. One of those sections is very comfy, quiet, has proper acoustic design, lots of outlets, and, gasp charges for time.
It’s actually a fairly nice model. If you want to work in someone’s commercial space, paying for it is entirely reasonable.
8p/min = £4.80 per hour. Bearing in mind I'd pay £5 for coffee and a cake in many places that seems reasonable.
UK: many public access spaces have places to sit and public wifi (e.g. central reference library, University buildings, some City Council buildings &c)
In Taiwan, there are some excellent tea houses that have an unusual billing model. You can drink their tea for the list price, or you can bring your own tea leaves but use their water, etc by paying for time.
These are not generally the kind of places where you would bring a laptop.
I try to make it profitable if I'm staying longer. If I stay for a long time, I will 'renew' my lease by buying more drinks or snacks :D Places that are friendly and welcoming today…I've gotta make it PROFITABLE for them to stay in business if I want them to be around tomorrow…
If by "business" you mean buying a coffee in exchange of several hours of free internet, electricity and real estate, then it is sort of understandable why many places don't encourage this kind of "business".
Some places do, and you have all the reasons in the world to favor these places as they match your needs, but it seems kind of silly expecting that every place should cater to every type of customer.
This seems very harsh. These places need internet anyway, need electricity anyway (the lights will be on either way.) And need real estate anyway. What is your point?
Coffee shops will never have enough seating anyway for the amount of coffee they sell.
I think this is a very uncharitable view of the situation. Some coffee shops don't want to pivot into coworking spaces and that's okay. Personally I think it's a match made in heaven since a day pass at a nice coworking space is around $10 which is like two drinks but I get that some businesses would prefer to just sell coffee.
$10 per day seems a low price to me. I have no experience of co-working spaces but I'm thinking of the costs of running a room with say 20 working spaces in it at the usual rent/rates/utilities...
They do want business, just not the kind that people who sit and stay bring. When you’re trying to improve your sales velocity, keeping existing customers moving so as not to dissuade new ones from coming in makes sense.
How does an empty café with bored looking staff invite new customers in?
When I go into frequently-empty places I find that the staff, who should have all the time in the world to help, are actually more distant, because they're so used to filling up their time chatting together or doing other stuff that when a customer actually does show up it's like some unforeseen situation they didn't plan for.
Agreed. The same can be applied to firms that bid on contracts. The firm who makes the most outlandish promises win. If you want to be honest, it is hard to compete, because your competitors won't be.
Some cafés that genuinely want your business make plugs available to the customers, some will even go as far as to put in plugs with USB adapters as well because they are making it clear: I want you to be here. Other places have no special extra plugs (just what you'd expect for a room that size) and that's fine, but some places have intentionally NO plugs and that's not an accident, that's by design.
Same thing with the wifi policy. I don't care if you have wifi, or don't have wifi, but if you aggressively block ~50% of all sites, seemingly at random, or have a time limit on usage…the message it clear, you only have Wifi so you can say "we have wifi" but you don't really mean it.
I only hope to patronize places that are welcoming, even if I'm not relying on those facilities that day. Those are the kinds of places I want to stay in business.
The kinds of places with limited internet and no plugs are the kinds of places that I don't want to be in business tomorrow, so I had better make sure not to give them a penny today.