Easy fix. Have a 30-45 minute free zone with purchase. Along with the monthly rentals noted in the article. And maybe even a poster with the nearest libraries and Christian Science reading rooms.
I feel guilt about this all the time. I work remotely, in the UK but on US Eastern time to synch with my team. Fortunately this means I can go to cafes after the lunch rush, but make sure I buy enough food and drink to not be a freeloader, tip well, and if it's busy - move on. Working from home is what I'm going back to anyway, it's just nice to get out of the house.
It's way easier if the cafe also sells food. Me and 2 others basically built a company some years back out of a cafe in Sacramento, but we always bought lots of coffee and bought our lunch there as well. We all shared 1 table too so the space was used well, and of course talked to the owner who had no problem.
Here's a great way to discourage campers: no outlets, not even 1.
Yep, brand new food court here in Canberra, Australia has no outlets. The outlets in the older food court have been hidden but can be found if you know where to look.
I have never worked outside of my own private space. I just feel uneasy, unsure and anxious that I am doing someone wrong by doing so.
If someone has covered up or hidden the outlets, to me that's a very clear sign that they don't want me there (atleast for that reason), and as such I would feel really guilty for using them. I suppose that's slightly different in a food court though, it's a bit more public than a coffee shop.
One of the cafes in the area put packing tape over all the outlets. When they did this I worked out that the coffee I drank cost over 200 times the electricity they saved-as you say they must be trying to displace people, not save money- but my MBP lasts nearly 6 hours[1] so I'm not so easily put off if the place is good :)
[1] I use Turbo Boost Switcher to stop the cpu running hot and gfxCardStatus to stick to integrated graphics. This seems to give me nearly 2h extra. I don't need speed for compiles or anything like that.
Hiding the outlets could act as a filter that only lets people camp out if they own a brand-new, expensive device with long battery life. That could work very well if the cafe is trying to cultivate a richer and trendier clientele.
On the other hand, it would also look similar to how Abercrombie & Fitch refuses to make clothes in large sizes, in order to prevent fat people from shopping in their stores.
"People like public space. Just as they like to work in a coffee shop on a laptop surrounded by others, they want to hang out with friends, to people-watch, flirt, take part in the rituals of public life.
In the suburbs, the 20th-century answer to the need for “public” space was the mall. The first were in the US in the 1950s, conceived as public places with kindergartens, medical centres and community facilities alongside the shops. Within a few years, only the shopping was left.
Malls have come a long way since. “Malls without walls”, whole shopping districts, resemble parts of the city, with real streets and brick and stone façades, and transpire to be privately owned. Liverpool One is an example. Cash-strapped municipalities cannot compete and people throng to these places. Users, once citizens, are rebranded as consumers."
"The consumer-citizen pops up all over the place, like a cardboard stand-in for democratic citizens who have no other political concerns beyond self-interested consumption .. the public is hung out to dry with effectively no defense or recourse since our political rights have evaporated into market choices."
The remaining malls in the U.S. are living on borrowed time.
In general, there's no/fewer public drinking fountains, fewer public restrooms, shrinking number of places that doesn't involve soup-Nazi consumerism and ever less spaces for homeless and the elderly to not be bothered. It's a not-so-subtle form of hate directed at anyone unable or unwilling to be extorted on a regular basis. Folks are going to get their power and heat/air-conditioning somehow, but there's big trouble in store for any shop owner that retaliates against customers... because they will inevitably find ways to ruin the business. Starbucks is immensely profitable and doesn't have to resort to passive-aggressive hate and discrimination games.
"The dead or dying mall is a real phenomenon. But all you have to do is invert these figures to get the bigger picture, which looks very different. If 20 percent of malls are in trouble, then 80 percent are still healthy. If 3.4 percent of malls are dying, then 96.6 percent of them aren't. (When the New York Times ran an otherwise nuanced front-page story on struggling malls in January, the accompanying graphic had a top line of 20 percent, wrongly suggesting that a rash of dead malls was a pandemic.)"
This seems like a UX/UI failure on the part of the coffee shop if he has to intervene in the customers' experience. The coffee shops I go to do a good job of making it clear what kind of customers they want by virtue of the experience you have there. This weekend I encountered the first coffee shop I can remember visiting that lacked wifi. I looked around and saw nothing but groups of people in conversation. Other shops I'm a regular at never make it awkward for me to sit there...whether with just a cup of coffee or a steady stream of drinks. If there's an outcome you want with your space, there's probably a good way to configure it so that you meet your end goal.
Did you read the fine article? His cafe does not offer wifi but people bring a hotspot and settle down for the day. What's he to do except talk to them politely?
The problem is definitely not the store. The problem is that people are trained by starbucks to treat all cafes like this. His cafe, instantly to me, suggests that it's NOT okay to camp out with my laptop all day there.
That's a good point. There's a coffee shop in my area where you can buy a $30/mo contract to a faster internet line, clearly catering to the remote working crowd. They also mark certain areas of the store as "no laptop areas" during certain times of the day. The clientele seems totally fine with this arrangement.
Shops should have colored or labeled cups associated to the time of purchase. Would a little shaming get people moving? Everyone would know how long everyone else has been there.
If someone "just" bought something in your shop (as mentioned in the article) you shouldn't bother them. If you're running a business like this, managing expectations is a large part of your job.
When discussions with customers occur frequently maybe it's time to review how your business is communicating with customers. What can be done to prevent misunderstandings regarding using laptops/hogging tables? etc.
What can be done is really to bother them. They set up to filter all outside noise anyway so that's the only way to get their attention.
If a coffee shop owner gets a bad reputation among teleworkers doing this, then that just means less for the coffee shop owner, getting him exactly the objective he wanted.
There was a coffee shop I used to frequent that used a captive portal for wifi, and the only way to get past it was to enter a 90 minute passcode from the bottom of your purchase receipt.
So if I came in there at night after work I considered it basically paying for internet, and getting a free coffee or pastry alongside it. Seemed perfectly fair.
I also find it amusing that Starbucks gives you free refills on brewed/ice coffee, provided you go enough to get their "gold" status (usually, 30 store visits a year).
They don't care if you camp there and keep getting free refills on coffee. They just care that you do it often.
If that is the typical dialog between the owner and the customer, than I have to assume that the owner is an idiot, as are patrons of his establishment.
This is becoming a real issue for me. I've basically stopped goings to cafes and bars because the owners seem annoyed by me camping around and I can only drink so many cups of coffee a day. I would gladly pay an hourly rent if they'd be happy with that but it seems once they've decided that I'm not welcome there nothing can change their mind.
If these places are run by the owners, perhaps you could consider asking them directly if paying some amount directly is an option? I think even just asking might make them less annoyed!
As well as good wifi, some renovations, and better decor[0].
[0] At least in my experience. I'm not sure what it is about coffeeshops. Their decor is just conducive to working, much more than the local library, at least.
Yes! Imagine if your local library was furnished more like an old book store; with decadent yet comfortable furniture and more soft lighting that is just slightly more yellow than the bright white they use. All the libraries I have been to (admittedly not many, these days) all look like hospitals.
All libraries should aspire to be more like Seattle Central Library. Good coffee, amazing architecture, fast wifi. Oh, and lots of books if you're into reading or whatever. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Central_Library
I've definitely guilty of doing this. Usually I get so engrossed in my work I lose track of time. I have no problem with proprietors asking me to make another purchase or leave.
> Over the past three years, owner Cristian Velasco grew frustrated with customers who would “buy a Coke, open their laptop, and take up a large area of my couch — 10 square feet of my space — for a Coca-Cola for $1.50 for five hours.”
I wouldn't be surprised if a significant number of people here do this. I do this as well. Most of the time, I'm not asked to leave, but other times, if I feel guilty, I buy something else, like another coffee or a sweet. I suppose I'd willing to "rent" space if it were available.
A funny relevant anecdote. Yesterday, I was at home trying to work, and I could not focus, so I walked to a nearby coffeeshop. Apparently, a group was filming something in half of the shop, so another section with most of the seats was closed off, as well as outside seating in front of it. Naturally, the remaining seats were full.
So, I randomly asked a person if I could share a seat with her. I didn't make small talk, I just sat and read. After twenty minutes or so, she got up to leave. After a while of reading, I saw a number of people come in and be told they might have to take to-go since the place was full. I was more than willing to share a seat at my table, and a number of other tables had open seats, but no one approached me, or anyone else for that matter...
So, I got up, and purchased a slice of cake to-go. A gentleman who was waiting for a chair thanked me and took my place.
Now, on the way home, there is a chocolate shop which has a couple of seats as well. I decided to peer inside, and guess who I see in the window? The lady who's table I took, apparently. :/
I guess I can't fault other people for not being as comfortable about sharing "personal space" as I am, but especially in that sort of situation, it hurts more than it helps.
I've seen this as well. Some people get really weirded out when you sit down and share a table with them when it gets busy. There's a table there that seats six, and you're just two people sitting at it. It's not YOUR exclusive table. You don't own it. If you really want to have a private conversation without anyone around, don't go to a busy coffee shop.
Near where I live there is a bakery/cafe/bar hybrid that has all tables being 3 tables for 2 people joined side by side.
When it is full, frequently it happens that if there is two people on one set of 6, the other 4 places are empty (does not matter where the two people are).
Except when the staff bother separating the tables by a inch or two, then all tables get used, it is a really curious effect.
Loved the photo's caption of the "laptop brigade", lol.
If there's a point where a significant portion of a community become knowledge workers, then it would be advantageous for local coffee shops to adapt to a co-working atmosphere. It wouldn't surprise me if a chain such as Starbucks did something like this in the future.
When I was working remotely and in-between jobs, I regularly squatted and rotated through coffee shops in town. What sucked about this though was several things: buying food/coffee out of guilt because it seemed like the right thing to do, constantly packing-up and unpacking your gear when going to the restroom, holding your bladder in as long as possible because it's an annoying and expensive context-switch to tend to one's biological functions, and uncomfortable seating which isn't meant for prolonged use.
Coffee shops in college towns will mostly be immune to this because it's simply how students live and work. Au Coquelet and People's Coffee in Berkeley come to mind. Talk about laptop brigades! The Berkeley Public Library wasn't so bad either, and they had free Wifi.
Nowadays, co-working spaces seem to be popping up everywhere now. Even where I'm at now in Lancaster, PA, which isn't exactly a tech hotbed, there are already 3 co-working spaces. I'm at the point now where coffee shop squatting is just too much of a hassle and would rather pay to have a quiet working environment that forces productivity, provides a solid Internet connection, offers decent amenities, and offers controlled access so I don't have to worry about getting my laptop stolen when stepping away from the desk.
> I'm at the point now where coffee shop squatting is just too much of a hassle and would rather pay to have a quiet working environment
Pardon my ignorance, but why isn't "working from home" an option? I WFH myself (current $job is 100% remote) and I bounce between my super comfy couch and a standing desk all day. Bonus, I get to make my own coffee, eat whatever/whenever I want, and I never have to worry about the social stigma of 'squatting' some coffeeshop-owner's turf. :-)
Nope, my long-term, live-in girlfriend and I are about to celebrate our 5th anniversary. No kids though. That said, one of my (also works-from-home) coworkers just had his third kid; he has a similar philosophy and just maintains a home office.
This is something one would never see in Europe. In Paris it's acceptable to buy an expresso, or a glass of wine and stay for hours. On my last day in Paris I did this and got a free bowl of chips too! Talk about hospitality.
Sorry, espresso. People correct me about this all the time. It's such an ingrained habit I don't know if I'll ever be able to pronounce/type that word properly.
It's definitely not acceptable in Italy. You're actually not allowed to bring your coffee to a table if you paid the counter fare. So yeah we have good coffee under $1, but only if you drink it and GTFO.
It's acceptable here, too. The coffee shop featured in the article is not "the norm." (In fact, the reason it's featured in an article at all is because it's out of the ordinary for coffee shops to kick people out.)
Although that person is using your internet with a $4 coffee, they're occupying space after everybody "is gone"(9am-11am and 1pm-4pm), contributing with their physical presence.
A newcomer, that may end up becoming a long-term customer, would feel more biased towards places with more customers( or the idea of).
So, although it might seem financially reasonable to kick them out, I doubt it's the best answer.
We do hackathons at a local craft coffee/beer cafe. I usually turn up with between 4 to 12 engineers and they all get coffee, beer, food on an expensed credit card. The guy that manages the place told me we could reserve tables like conference rooms if we wanted. Pretty cool.
It's super-simple, people. Understand that by being that person with the laptop taking up table real estate you're consuming a resource that the proprietor uses to generate revenue. Customers who might otherwise come in, sit down and make a purchase will keep walking if there are no tables available.
Put another way - it's like that one client who paid you $50 to install a WordPress plugin 6 months ago who calls you weekly to troubleshoot their printer problems.
There's a very simple thing you can do which will keep any cafe owner happy. Every 25-30 minutes, have a glance around and check for vacant tables. If there are fewer than two tables available (or maybe one in smaller cafes) it's time to move on. The only exception being if you have just sat down, in which case, finish your food and beverage and leave.
Why not just get one of those wi-fi setups where a wi-fi password is printed on the receipt and the number of minutes/hours of wi-fi the customer receives is either a fixed amount or tied to the amount of margin you're making on a customer for that transaction.
It basically says to the customer "Want to continue working here? Buy another coffee."
This of course doesn't address those that show up with their personal hotspots, but I feel like that is still the minority of coffee shop campers.
Removing wall outlets is another deterrent. You can only keep working as long as you have juice. That said, battery life for mobile devices is getting longer, so this tactic isn't always effective.
I would be a happy customer if coffee shops sold their most popular product directly: time @ the coffee shop. I guess the businesses would be happier too.
One should figure out a more efficient way of handling short term leases than that coffee mug that proxies as something that is almost but not quite totally unlike a lease agreement.
Take my credit card and charge me on how much time I have been there, hand out blinking timers...whatever works.
I love working in cafes and have done it a ton. Every so often someone tries a radical variation on the basic model, but it almost always feels awkward and doesn't last long. One that I was surprised to see actually work, though, is the Workshop Cafe in SF's financial district. Their model is much what you described. It's a cross between a huge café and a big office, which ought to be terrible, but manages not to be. The coffee is good and the internet is very good. And it's often pretty busy, so I guess people are using it as intended.
82 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 142 ms ] threadHere's a great way to discourage campers: no outlets, not even 1.
If someone has covered up or hidden the outlets, to me that's a very clear sign that they don't want me there (atleast for that reason), and as such I would feel really guilty for using them. I suppose that's slightly different in a food court though, it's a bit more public than a coffee shop.
[1] I use Turbo Boost Switcher to stop the cpu running hot and gfxCardStatus to stick to integrated graphics. This seems to give me nearly 2h extra. I don't need speed for compiles or anything like that.
On the other hand, it would also look similar to how Abercrombie & Fitch refuses to make clothes in large sizes, in order to prevent fat people from shopping in their stores.
"People like public space. Just as they like to work in a coffee shop on a laptop surrounded by others, they want to hang out with friends, to people-watch, flirt, take part in the rituals of public life.
In the suburbs, the 20th-century answer to the need for “public” space was the mall. The first were in the US in the 1950s, conceived as public places with kindergartens, medical centres and community facilities alongside the shops. Within a few years, only the shopping was left.
Malls have come a long way since. “Malls without walls”, whole shopping districts, resemble parts of the city, with real streets and brick and stone façades, and transpire to be privately owned. Liverpool One is an example. Cash-strapped municipalities cannot compete and people throng to these places. Users, once citizens, are rebranded as consumers."
From http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/7/stop-treating-c...
"The consumer-citizen pops up all over the place, like a cardboard stand-in for democratic citizens who have no other political concerns beyond self-interested consumption .. the public is hung out to dry with effectively no defense or recourse since our political rights have evaporated into market choices."
In general, there's no/fewer public drinking fountains, fewer public restrooms, shrinking number of places that doesn't involve soup-Nazi consumerism and ever less spaces for homeless and the elderly to not be bothered. It's a not-so-subtle form of hate directed at anyone unable or unwilling to be extorted on a regular basis. Folks are going to get their power and heat/air-conditioning somehow, but there's big trouble in store for any shop owner that retaliates against customers... because they will inevitably find ways to ruin the business. Starbucks is immensely profitable and doesn't have to resort to passive-aggressive hate and discrimination games.
http://www.citylab.com/design/2015/03/shopping-malls-arent-a...
"The dead or dying mall is a real phenomenon. But all you have to do is invert these figures to get the bigger picture, which looks very different. If 20 percent of malls are in trouble, then 80 percent are still healthy. If 3.4 percent of malls are dying, then 96.6 percent of them aren't. (When the New York Times ran an otherwise nuanced front-page story on struggling malls in January, the accompanying graphic had a top line of 20 percent, wrongly suggesting that a rash of dead malls was a pandemic.)"
I know this is HN, but is it necessary to shoehorn computer references into situations where it's not needed?
The problem is definitely not the store. The problem is that people are trained by starbucks to treat all cafes like this. His cafe, instantly to me, suggests that it's NOT okay to camp out with my laptop all day there.
My local library is open 10-2 some days!
the bathrooms, at least in sf, are fucking cesspools. I mean a literal fucking piss moat around the toilet.
When discussions with customers occur frequently maybe it's time to review how your business is communicating with customers. What can be done to prevent misunderstandings regarding using laptops/hogging tables? etc.
If a coffee shop owner gets a bad reputation among teleworkers doing this, then that just means less for the coffee shop owner, getting him exactly the objective he wanted.
So if I came in there at night after work I considered it basically paying for internet, and getting a free coffee or pastry alongside it. Seemed perfectly fair.
I also find it amusing that Starbucks gives you free refills on brewed/ice coffee, provided you go enough to get their "gold" status (usually, 30 store visits a year).
They don't care if you camp there and keep getting free refills on coffee. They just care that you do it often.
Edit: this part of the article stood out -
>“A croissant and a coffee to support a local business are a lot cheaper than a co-working membership.”
Yep. I wonder if it's a lack of co-working spaces or pricing to "what the market will bear".
I need a cross between a hackerspace and a co-working space.
[0] At least in my experience. I'm not sure what it is about coffeeshops. Their decor is just conducive to working, much more than the local library, at least.
Sadly though many libraries, especially rural and regional ones just can't afford that.
I have definitely been that customer.
A funny relevant anecdote. Yesterday, I was at home trying to work, and I could not focus, so I walked to a nearby coffeeshop. Apparently, a group was filming something in half of the shop, so another section with most of the seats was closed off, as well as outside seating in front of it. Naturally, the remaining seats were full.
So, I randomly asked a person if I could share a seat with her. I didn't make small talk, I just sat and read. After twenty minutes or so, she got up to leave. After a while of reading, I saw a number of people come in and be told they might have to take to-go since the place was full. I was more than willing to share a seat at my table, and a number of other tables had open seats, but no one approached me, or anyone else for that matter...
So, I got up, and purchased a slice of cake to-go. A gentleman who was waiting for a chair thanked me and took my place.
Now, on the way home, there is a chocolate shop which has a couple of seats as well. I decided to peer inside, and guess who I see in the window? The lady who's table I took, apparently. :/
I guess I can't fault other people for not being as comfortable about sharing "personal space" as I am, but especially in that sort of situation, it hurts more than it helps.
When it is full, frequently it happens that if there is two people on one set of 6, the other 4 places are empty (does not matter where the two people are).
Except when the staff bother separating the tables by a inch or two, then all tables get used, it is a really curious effect.
If there's a point where a significant portion of a community become knowledge workers, then it would be advantageous for local coffee shops to adapt to a co-working atmosphere. It wouldn't surprise me if a chain such as Starbucks did something like this in the future.
When I was working remotely and in-between jobs, I regularly squatted and rotated through coffee shops in town. What sucked about this though was several things: buying food/coffee out of guilt because it seemed like the right thing to do, constantly packing-up and unpacking your gear when going to the restroom, holding your bladder in as long as possible because it's an annoying and expensive context-switch to tend to one's biological functions, and uncomfortable seating which isn't meant for prolonged use.
Coffee shops in college towns will mostly be immune to this because it's simply how students live and work. Au Coquelet and People's Coffee in Berkeley come to mind. Talk about laptop brigades! The Berkeley Public Library wasn't so bad either, and they had free Wifi.
Nowadays, co-working spaces seem to be popping up everywhere now. Even where I'm at now in Lancaster, PA, which isn't exactly a tech hotbed, there are already 3 co-working spaces. I'm at the point now where coffee shop squatting is just too much of a hassle and would rather pay to have a quiet working environment that forces productivity, provides a solid Internet connection, offers decent amenities, and offers controlled access so I don't have to worry about getting my laptop stolen when stepping away from the desk.
What is pricing like?
Pardon my ignorance, but why isn't "working from home" an option? I WFH myself (current $job is 100% remote) and I bounce between my super comfy couch and a standing desk all day. Bonus, I get to make my own coffee, eat whatever/whenever I want, and I never have to worry about the social stigma of 'squatting' some coffeeshop-owner's turf. :-)
Wife gets to socialize, kids get to learn and interact with other kids. You get a peaceful space to work. Everyone profits =)
That's my experience anyways, I have a wife and 2 year old and have been working from home for about 8 years.
Although that person is using your internet with a $4 coffee, they're occupying space after everybody "is gone"(9am-11am and 1pm-4pm), contributing with their physical presence.
A newcomer, that may end up becoming a long-term customer, would feel more biased towards places with more customers( or the idea of).
So, although it might seem financially reasonable to kick them out, I doubt it's the best answer.
Put another way - it's like that one client who paid you $50 to install a WordPress plugin 6 months ago who calls you weekly to troubleshoot their printer problems.
There's a very simple thing you can do which will keep any cafe owner happy. Every 25-30 minutes, have a glance around and check for vacant tables. If there are fewer than two tables available (or maybe one in smaller cafes) it's time to move on. The only exception being if you have just sat down, in which case, finish your food and beverage and leave.
It basically says to the customer "Want to continue working here? Buy another coffee."
This of course doesn't address those that show up with their personal hotspots, but I feel like that is still the minority of coffee shop campers.
Removing wall outlets is another deterrent. You can only keep working as long as you have juice. That said, battery life for mobile devices is getting longer, so this tactic isn't always effective.
You have deliberately made the space comfortable for long stays. Now figure out how to get the users to pay the rent!
One should figure out a more efficient way of handling short term leases than that coffee mug that proxies as something that is almost but not quite totally unlike a lease agreement.
Take my credit card and charge me on how much time I have been there, hand out blinking timers...whatever works.