The Tragedy of the Coffee Shop

http://www.coffeeandcode.org/2009/08/06/the-tragedy-of-the-coffee-shop/

by neilc • 17 years ago

28 43 17 years ago

wallflower• 17 years ago

For the perspective of an aspiring coffee shop owner, I recommend (if you have not read it yet): "I opened a charming neighborhood coffee shop. Then it destroyed my life."

Via http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=461791

http://www.slate.com/id/2132576

lionhearted• 17 years ago

Seconded - great piece. It speaks of the dangers of loving the product or service while neglecting the business side of things.

"The dream of running a small cafe has nothing to do with the excitement of entrepreneurship or the joys of being one's own boss—none of us would ever consider opening a Laundromat or a stationery store, and even the most delusional can see that an independent bookshop is a bad idea these days. The small cafe connects to the fantasy of throwing a perpetual dinner party, and it cuts deeper—all the way to Barbie tea sets—than any other capitalist urge. To a couple in the throes of the cafe dream, money is almost an afterthought. Which is good, because they're going to lose a lot of it."

That happens to a lot of good people, sadly. Michael Gerber covers it pretty well in "The E-Myth Revisited", which I consider the Bible for small business owners. I make anyone I work with read it before we work together. Any entrepreneurial-minded person who hasn't read it would do well to check it out. Amazon, no affiliate link:

http://www.amazon.com/E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-Abou...

silencio3• 17 years ago

Love this post.

One family business is running businesses like these, and it frustrates me to no end when people (for whatever reason, not just working on a laptop) hog a seat and a table for hours on end after buying the cheapest thing they can find on the menu once when they walked in. I don't mind if someone sits there for 10+ hours a day if they keep on buying food and coffee regularly, and I know I've sat at a table for hours on end working but even went as far as to make a timer on my laptop to get up every like 30 minutes to go get something. But it's crass to sit there like "oh, this seat is mine, I bought ONE small cup of coffee 3 hours ago, stop looking at me like that".

It's one thing for a coffee shop to look busier by having a whole bunch of people sit there and work away, attracting passers-by, but it's another when people who don't buy anything just hog the tables preventing new customers from coming in because they see a total lack of available work space.

That being said, I remember once when I was at a family friend's coffee shop and there was one customer who just. wouldn't. leave. He was told about their time limit policy about customers getting x hours with purchase (rarely enforced...except with people like these) and he was like "whatever" and acted like he was going to buy something but then settled back in and worked. I saw this go on for 20 minutes when I decided to boot him off the wifi. I don't think he realized I was purposefully doing so until I kept on kicking him off, and the outrage on his face was unbelievable. It was as if he felt he was entitled to sit there and do whatever he wanted after buying a 50 cent bottle of water earlier, how dare I interrupt what he was doing. Unfortunately it's those types of people who ruin the whole experience for all the reasonable folk.

Lastly, the advice about getting to know the owners/employees is the best :) I don't spend much time actually working, but when I have there were always a few customers I got to know and even once ended up working with because they decided to chat me up after seeing whatever I was doing on the side, like reading some tech book or coding on my laptop. I always included a little something for them, like free cookies. Those are the kinds of customers that make my day.

lsd5you2• 17 years ago

"I don't mind if someone sits there for 10+ hours a day if they keep on buying food and coffee regularly"

Isn't this a bit consumerist, consume something or get out? (And didn't that jump out at you when you wrote it?) Perhaps there should be a 3rd way, paying for time at a table. The problem is the pricing (and people taking the piss).

pwmanagerdied• 17 years ago

It's the nearest choice most place have to what you suggest. There are few venues that allow you to pay directly for table time, but you're (ehtically) doing the same thing by regularly purchasing items from them.

silencio3• 17 years ago

I admit it is, but it's a coffee shop, a business...not your house or an office or a coworking space or your friend's couch. What else were you expecting? Something and somebody does have to pay the rent. Seats and tables and sofas are there for customers to sit down and enjoy what they purchased, not for some person to work for hours on end without buying anything.

I personally don't care how someone goes about supporting the shop though - I'd be fine with someone paying like a couple bucks an hour or even like a $5/hour includes bottomless coffee and a snack plus outlet and wifi kind of deal. But most coffee shops don't have employees that would be comfortable with making a deal like that on-the-spot with a customer, nor is that a really obvious thing for most people to even propose.

So in lieu of paying for a table or offering to do so, someone could just occasionally get up, stretch, and buy a cookie. I didn't say it had to be a large cup of coffee every hour :) Just a little something occasionally to show that you're not just going to make yourself comfortable there without buying anything more.

tptacek• 17 years ago

"Consumerist"? It's a store.

rufo• 17 years ago

I've gradually been going more and more often to our local coworking space - no worries about taking up table space, unlimited coffee, other freelancers to bounce ideas and news off of, and it's no big deal if you want to leave your equipment there for a bit and run out.

lsc• 17 years ago

Yeah. I am at the Hacker Dojo here in mountain view right now. http://hackerdojo.pbworks.com/ - it's shaping up to be pretty nice.

jcw• 17 years ago

The bit about teahouses in China reminded me that in America, especially the suburbs, we don't really have places like that. It's kind of sad, the only place that comes to mind is Waffle House at 3AM. Most restaurants and coffee shops seem to discourage customers sitting around for several hours.

gamble• 17 years ago

Restaurants and commercial furniture are designed to get customers in and out as fast as possible. Ever notice how most fast-food places use plastic banquettes with seat backs that are pitched forward? They're intended to be so uncomfortable that you don't linger after eating.

timr• 17 years ago

I agree that the so-called "third places" don't really exist anymore (in the US, anyway), but the article's comparison to modern US coffeehouses was clunky. These days, laptop zombies tend to convert third spaces into glorified cubicles. Wi-fi has taken formerly social environments, and made them creepy and dull.

I remember the first time I visited a coffee shop, long Before wi-fi was invented: it was a social place that had big couches, plants, books and games. People gathered there, played chess and cards over coffee, and there were even live performances of various sorts at night and on weekends. Contrast to your typical coffee shop scene today: rows of tables and uncomfortable chairs, doubled-up with dudes at laptops who have been camped out for hours, nursing a small cup of coffee.

Once upon a time, coffee houses were about relaxation and social life; today, they're basically about work. So personally, I'm thrilled that cafes are starting to cover up power outlets, and I hope that they soon follow this trend with paid hourly wi-fi access -- or even eliminating the wireless access entirely.

swombat• 17 years ago

My rule of thumb is to buy something regulalry while you’re there – at least a large cup of coffee every hour.

That's insane. Might as well rent an office for that price. Also, that much coffee is definitely not good for you.

I agree that you should buy something, but I disagree with the "regularly" part. I certainly would agree that bringing your own teabags to a coffee shop is totally out of order though.

abalashov• 17 years ago

I usually buy several cups of coffee throughout the day in addition to a morning latte.

But not every hour. Not even I can stomach that.

bmelton• 17 years ago

I usually don't worry about it too much unless they're busy, and I feel like I'm taking up space, but I ordinarily order at least a 'premium' coffee and something to munch on while I work, and I agree with the 1 coffee per hour rule.

If you can't keep up, or aren't thirsty, you can buy a coffee 'for the house', which basically equates to just giving them money. If you're trying to make friends, or the cashier or barista is cute, you can buy them a drink too. You'll probably be looked at funny (since I'm guessing their drinks are free,) but life's full of weirdos. Might as well be one. ;-)

silencio3• 17 years ago

A large cup of coffee every hour is insane, but so is buying only one cup of coffee and then sitting there for several hours. I'm sure there's a balance between the two that will work out for most people who decide working for hours at a time in a coffee shop is preferable to, say, a coworking space.

boundlessdreamz• 17 years ago

"might as well rent an office for that price". Exactly. The coffee shop owners are not there to provide a free(or cheap) office space to you. They are there to run a business and people like you will drive a coffee shop out of business.

I can see a "sense of entitlement" in you comment. Why do you disagree that if you are sitting in a coffee shop and occupying one of their seats and using up electricity for your laptop, you should buy something regularly

neilc• 17 years ago

people like you will drive a coffee shop out of business.

That is more likely to be true if the shop is full to capacity (e.g. during the lunch rush, etc.). When there is free space, your marginal cost to the coffee shop is just electricity, which isn't that much.

That said, I agree it's only decent to purchase something regularly -- a coffee every 2 hours or some food seems reasonable to me.

bkz• 17 years ago

Funny, I was in Berlin last week and spent a couple of evenings at this place where I can't recall a single person _without_ a laptop:

http://www.spottedbylocals.com/berlin/area/mitte/bars-mitte/...

gaius2• 17 years ago

Interesting. Do Germans use their laptops to find partners?

asdlfj2sd33• 17 years ago

It occurs to me that 3rd places in the old world may have existed in large part due to market inefficiencies. A combination of local monopolies and low overhead. Some element of love of the game, much like OS software, might have also played into the ownership of tea houses and outdoor cafes.

But what are we to do in our modern much more efficient real estate and beverage service markets?

Publicly subsidize 3rd places?

I'm having a hard time comping up with a libertarian argument for public subsidies of public spaces. I happen to think bridges are better when privately funded, like the Millau Viaduct http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millau_Viaduct

But that's because the return on investment with bridges is easy to collect.

3rd spaces however could be crucial to community building, thereby acting as a fertilizer for increased business activity and possibly even as a way to reduce crime rates.

But those benefits are difficult to charge for.

dbul• 17 years ago

Damn it feels good to be in Pittsburgh. As I often hop coffee shops, I understand the behavior. Students will even go so far as get a coffee, work, then go to a nearby food shop and bring something back for their dinner while they continue to work on their laptops. What's great is that no one cares. Here it is choice. Most coffee shops are open until 11 or midnight on the weeknights and 12 or 1 on the weekends, most have wifi, and most have outlets. If you were to be kicked out of one coffee shop, then simply that coffee shop loses your business and another one gains.

Just from observation, so many people come in and stay for just a few minutes or take their coffee to go that it's kind of a nice equilibrium. It's rare that you'll find a coffee shop in Pittsburgh to 100% capacity (except perhaps Sunday afternoon or evening in the fall and spring). Electricity costs nothing. If anything, having people in your coffee shop serves as a kind of advertisement that it is a place people want to be for whatever reason -- the coffee is good or they just feel comfortable there.

As fantastic as Manhattan is, there are two reasons why I wouldn't want to live there: too many tourists and too few coffee shops. The best I could find in the upper west side was Cosi, a chain. The best I could find around Soho was some piece that closed earlier than shops in Pittsburgh. And the best I could find in the Upper East Side closed a couple years ago. Pittsburgh, baby. Awesome place to live if you love the coffee shops.

rdouble• 17 years ago

There are fewer coffee shops per capita in Manhattan compared to places like Portland and SF. I'm assuming because rents are so expensive. However, you were looking in the wrong neighborhoods. The coffee shops are in places like East/West Village and the Lower East Side.

What you are experiencing in Pittsburgh is a function of cheap rent. I lived in Minneapolis many years ago and the coffee shop scene was similar to what you described. The attitudes toward people hanging out and not buying anything are much different when the rent on a space is $900/m instead of $9000/m.

I wouldn't say that electricity costs nothing. Ritual Roasters in SF said that laptop users were costing them upwards of $2000/m in electricity charges.

Ritual used to have a bazillion power outlets you could plug your laptop into, and they'd have them covered up only on the weekends. During the second week of March 2007 (a date that shall live in infamy) they covered up nearly all of their power outlets permanently in an effort to encourage higher turnover and cut their $2,000/month electric bill down.

http://sf.wikispot.org/Ritual_Coffee_Roasters

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/03/...

ryanwaggoner2• 17 years ago

They didn't say that laptop users were costing them $2000 / month, but that they were trying to cut their $2000 / month bill down. Big difference.

If the coffee shop is open 18 hours per day, 30 days a month, and the average laptop pulls 50w, which costs $.20 per kWh, they'd need to have like 350-400 laptops plugged in every single hour that they're open to rack up $2k / month in costs.

If you bring your laptop in and sit for six hours, you've just cost them seven cents in electricity.

gaius2• 17 years ago

If you were to be kicked out of one coffee shop, then simply that coffee shop loses your business and another one gains.

The point of these articles is there is no "business"; if people with laptops actually were good customers no-one would have any problem with them consuming resources (space, power).

dmoney2• 17 years ago

At the coffee shop I frequent, with your purchase you can get a card for 2 hours of WiFi. This seems like a good way to limit your laptop per dollar ratio.

cryptoz2• 17 years ago

Starbucks does this, in Canada at least. The gift card (or whatever it is) costs $5 and you get 2 hours of Wifi with it. The trick to circumvent, though, is to use the $5 card to purchase another $5 card. Now you have your original scenario, but four hours of Wifi.

aardvarkious• 17 years ago

You mean you get 2 hours of wifi when you buy a gift card, which you can then use to buy anything?

cema2• 17 years ago

So if I do not use their wifi (use my evdo card instead) and sit there forever with a single cup of coffee, is it ok? Or am I supposed to buy their wifi instead? I am confused about your reasoning.

dmoney2• 17 years ago

Would it be OK to sit there forever reading a book after buying a single cup of coffee? I would say it depends.

In this case they don't charge for the WiFi, it just comes with your coffee.

My reasoning is that most laptop users will use WiFi, and if they want to use it, they at least have to ask for a new card every couple hours, which involves either buying something or overtly seeming like a leech.

warwick• 17 years ago

I wonder if you could adjust the coffee shop model a bit to work better for these kinds of people. Here's a wacky idea about how it could work.

A few assumptions:

- People who walk in, pay $n for a cup of coffee, sit at a table and stay for an hour aren't abusing the system at all. Even if it's just one person at a table reading, we'll say that $n pays for an hour of table time, in addition to the coffee, expenses, profit, etc. In that case, two friends walking in and sharing a table is just a bonus for the shop owner.

- If people want to stay for longer than their purchase justifies, they're willing to pay $x for the table, power, wifi, etc.

- Nobody wants to pay for both their table space and their coffee.

- This coffee shop is _good_ to work in. It's encouraged by the staff, the seating is comfortable, outlets are within reach, the music isn't obnoxious, the food and coffee are good, private rooms might be available for a higher table fee, etc.

Given all that, here's how I think it could work:

In this coffee shop, a typical customer walks in and orders a cup of coffee from the barista. She makes it, takes his money, and hands him the coffee. The trick is that the cup he's received has a little RFID chip, basically rigged to say 'I am a cup of something'.

The customer chooses a table and sits down. On the table is a little device with a coin slot and a display on it. It might be reminiscent of those old jukebox selectors that make you think of '50's diners. The device has a little clock on it, and also a little secondary display.

When he sits down, the RFID chip registers with the table and the device on the table registers 1 hour on it's clock. The device also registers the RFIDs unique ID with a server somewhere in the shop, making sure it only works once.

After an hour, the clock has run down and the customer is still happily working away. He doesn't really want another coffee yet.

The wait staff receives an alert on their handheld (Think an iPod touch or some similar device) that the table has 'expired'. They walk over and ask the customer if they can get them anything else. When he declines, they politely remind him that he'll have to pay for any additional table time, and he can do so with the device on the table.

He throws $x into the device, it adds time to the clock and the dollar amount to it's secondary display. Half an hour later, he decides it's time for more coffee. He calls over the wait staff (maybe there's even a little button on the device to call them over), and asks for another coffee. The wait staff looks at their handheld, sees that the table has paid for time, and goes to get the coffee. They gives it to the customer, and charge it against the table on their handheld. The dollar amount on the secondary display decrements to pay for the coffee, but the clock stays the same. Now the purchase of that coffee paid for some of his table time. In this way, he isn't effectively double billed.

Opinions?

ryanwaggoner2• 17 years ago

Great technically, but leaves out the social aspect. People are conditioned to think that if they buy anything, they are entitled to sit at a table for as long as they want. Putting a meter on that right isn't going to go over well, especially if I can just go across the street to your competitor and work as long as I want.

So the key would have to be if all the other coffee shops started turning off wifi and covering their outlets, or it would have to be a really great place to work.

mullr• 17 years ago

This would actually appeal to me a lot, since it would remove all ambiguity from the relationship between me (the customer), the proprieter, and my use of the table. I'm always very nervous when I work in a coffee shop, so I'm always looking around to see how long other people staying so I can stay within the norm. This would remove that entirely.

Potential enhancement: the staff will babysit your table for you while you go to the bathroom. That would be a big win.

thingie• 17 years ago

Huh. By doing this, you are making an enviroment which is exactly the opposite of what people expect from a coffee shop. Would you like to sit by a table with display counting remaining time to stay? I wouldn't stay there any longer than I would have to, and never come back then.

Most people (attractive coffee shop customers) accept that they should buy something and stay for a reasonably long time, but if they were forced to do that by such a technical and precise system, they would hate it.

springcoil• 17 years ago

I love this post too, I spent a lot of my time at college, sitting in coffee shops doing mathematics/ pretending to study. Third places are a very interesting tool.

jhancock• 17 years ago

I prefer coffee shops (U.S.) and tea houses (in China) that do not have WiFi. I find it very anti-social to walk into a cosy little place and see everyone focused on their laptops. A coffee shop is a great place to meet your friends and find new ones. The feel of it being a "free" temp work place doesn't suit me.

xinsight• 17 years ago

So, when I go into a coffee shop, don't use the bathroom, order a black coffee (no sugar), don't use the wifi and quicky leave -- do I get a discount?

petercooper• 17 years ago

All those people who want to sit around for several hours a day working should go to the library. They don't mind you doing it and some libraries have refreshments available.

That said, cafés will have to go beyond blocking up power if they want to dissuade laptoppers. Battery life is going up a lot, you can easily get 5 or 6 hours on the new MBP and my EEE PC will do 8 hours no trouble. Add a 3G dongle to that, and I don't really care where I go.

The Tragedy of the Coffee Shop

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