Hmm. As a coffee shop owner this is interesting. I was thinking more along the lines of getting a megaphone for my baristas so they can loudly shame the deadbeats.<p>Most of my clientèle are students so the internet access is pretty key. I have noticed a few obviously non-student types hanging out looking for jobs online. Which is cool unless they are bringing their own drinks. Which happens.
I always thought that allowing customers to sit around was the coffee shop business model.<p>It's like Barnes & Noble versus previous bookstores. Barnes & Noble encourages you to sit down and read books you have no intention of buying. They're smart enough to know that if you're in the store for 2 hours at a time on a regular basis, you're going to buy SOMETHING. I buy a lot of stuff at Barnes & Noble even though Amazon is generally cheaper. I go there all the time because it's such a cool place to shop, and I buy stuff because I see it and I'm like, "I WANT!"<p>Anyway, my impression was always that Starbucks and others had the same idea. If you let customers chill for a few hours, they're going to buy stuff. I know I do. If I'm going to sit and read or sit and use a laptop, I'll buy a good drink and some kind of snack. If I want to stay after I finish that, I'll buy something else.<p>I guess the problem is now customers aren't buying stuff, which sadly coffee shops are fighting in less-than-optimal ways. The problem is, I think, that there is no optimal way that coffee shop owners can do anything. Customers need to be reasonable and support the businesses that are giving them such a nice place to hang out and get online.
I was flabbergasted at the account of people bringing in their own tea bags or home-made sandwiches. Kudos to the coffee shop owners for trying to accommodate them by adding sandwiches to their repertoire, but I'm not surprised that it didn't change much. If someone comes in with a teabag and a PB&J so they can cuddle up in the corner with their laptop all day, I have no compassion; coffee shops need to stay in business, and to stay in business there needs to be place for <i>paying</i> customers to sit.<p>Conversely, kicking someone out when the place is almost empty sounds like just awful PR to me. It's an intuitive distinction: "It's busy, we need space for people to sit," vs. "It's empty, feel free to hang out until it gets busy." What's complicated about that?
<i>So far, this appears to be largely a New York phenomenon, though San Francisco's Coffee Bar does now put out signs when the shop is crowded asking laptop users to share tables and make space for other customers.</i><p>Cool; I'm never moving to NY.<p>It's highly unlikely that many SF or SV places could actually "get away" with kicking out their paying customers and maintain any kind of loyal customer base. It's really a symbiotic relationship -- being nice to the laptop wielders makes it much more likely that they'll be nice to your business in online reviews and contexts.
What a great business plan: Harrass the jobless who are working on job applications (or maybe a startup?).<p>Think they'll become loyal customers once they're employed?<p>Weird business idea: figure out how to be <i>supportive</i> toward the down-and-(temp.)out techies (and their laptops) so you have a tech-friendly reputation. [ If you don't, some of them will open shops that will compete with yours. ]
It's odd that some people seem to be assuming everyone is either surfing or job hunting.<p>From having talked to people, I think more often it's people making stuff, being creative, getting stuff done - some amazing projects and products get created in cafes.<p>I love seeing laptops out in coffee shops.<p>When a cafe is welcoming of laptops, I always tip better: paper only.
Didn't the woman who wrote Harry Potter do the entire first book in a coffee shop? Well, at least thats the PR! Just think - we might have no Harry Potter if her local coffee shop (cafe) had kicked her out. I'll leave that up to you, if you think it's a good thing!
When I read this the other day, I wondered how many laptop abusers there are compared to people who sit with their laptop and continue to buy things. Because this gets rid of both.<p>Maybe the economy has gotten bad enough recently to tip the scale too far.