No More Perks: Coffee Shops Pull the Plug on Laptop Users

[WriteDown]

Source: WSJ

A sign at Naidre's, a small neighborhood coffee shop in Brooklyn, N.Y., begins warmly: "Dear customers, we are absolutely thrilled that you like us so much that you want to spend the day..."

But, it continues, "...people gotta eat, and to eat they gotta sit." At Naidre's in Park Slope and its second location in nearby Carroll Gardens, Wi-Fi is free. But since the spring of 2008, no laptops have been allowed between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. weekends, unless the customer is eating and typing at the same time.

Amid the economic downturn, there are fewer places in New York to plug in computers. As idle workers fill coffee-shop tables -- nursing a single cup, if that, and surfing the Web for hours -- and as shop owners struggle to stay in business, a decade-old love affair between coffee shops and laptop-wielding customers is fading. In some places, customers just get cold looks, but in a growing number of small coffee shops, firm restrictions on laptop use have been imposed and electric outlets have been locked. The laptop backlash may predate the recession, but the recession clearly has accelerated it.

"You don't want to discourage it, it's a wonderful tradition," says Naidre's owner Janice Pullicino, 53 years old. A former partner in a computer-graphics business, Ms. Pullicino insists she loves technology and hates to limit its use. But when she realized that people with laptops were taking up seats and driving away the more lucrative lunch crowd, she put up the sign. Last fall, she covered up some of the outlets, describing that as a "cost-cutting measure" to save electricity.....


Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124950421033208823.html#mod=whats_news_free?mod=igoogle_wsj_gadgv1

[rd_kent]

1. .

[WriteDown]

3. I've seen the same phenomena....

Trying to find a seat in a coffee shop filled with laptops just so I can drink my espresso.

[rd_kent]

2. Many shops in the Northwest suffer from this

It does suck to go to a coffee shop for a cup o'joe and there is no place to sit because laptoppers have most of the seats (always all of the comfy ones) taken. Seems like many of then do not even have coffee or food either.

[bitchkitty]

4. Too bad...

I hate that there are fewer mom and pop shops today. When I lived on the other side of town I was near a place called Cafe Delirium - kick butt espresso, all the requisite yummies and big, comfy chairs and sofas. They were nearly always busy but you could usually find a seat if you didn't mind sitting next to a stranger. I love the place, it's a wonderful alternative to Starbucks.

I expect that they've had to do the same thing. Businesses are struggling in this little town.

[pfitz59]

5. Simple sign

Free WiFI/tables/chairs for customers only! No buying? No sitting/surfing!

[Abq_Sarah]

6. My local coffee shop has put up signs to that effect

And instituted a one hour limit on free WiFI.

[RexDart]

7. Like restrooms?

Good idea, but it's much easier to nurse a cup of coffee for an hour then a toilet. Maybe a cover charge for an outlet of even a small fee for hooking to the network.

I'm part of a local weekly board game group. We used to meet at a local coffee shop, but with all the laptops we would end up playing something like Agricola on a 24" round table that was 1 foot off the floor. It didn't work very well. Now we've found a pizza place that doesn't mind us at all, as our table spends about $40/hr on pizza and beer. Shameless plug - if you're near Santa Cruz and want to get into a board game group, let me know.

[Codeine]

10. Agricola is fantastic.

My current "gamer's game" of choice.

[RexDart]

15. Very much agree.

We had in on the table last Tuesday. Four player, 2 of them noobs. We had them seriously hooked but the end of the first turn. My best game buy of the past year.

[Hugin]

18. Put it next to a collection jar. n/t

[Neoma]

8. Jeez, are they going to limit reading books also?

[Chulanowa]

24. If the shops were filling up wioth noncustomers reading

And denying space for other customers, sure.

[Lagomorph]

25. Doubt it....

Our local Barnes & Noble has a Starbucks. There are chairs and sofas all over the store. Sometimes, when I go there with my wife, it takes us half a day to get to what we were looking for. It's usually good for two or three latte's and a few more books than we planned on.

Damned fiendish capitalists!

[LiberalLovinLug]

9. You could see this coming

Especially if more and more of the worlds population are wired up to the net. Already I just do not go into certain coffee shops because I KNOW that there will be no seats available to simply sit with a coffee and pastry and read the paper.
They'll have to have some kind of time limit programed into a registered access. Its not sustainable as it is.

Another option, which our city was contemplating, was making the whole downtown core into a free wireless hub, putting all cafes, bars, restaurants, and any building or park for that matter on an equal footing. Spread it around. Anyways there has to be some solution.

[Davis_X_Machina]

11. A splendid idea that will never fly...

...because it will be perceived as someone getting something for nothing.

You're more likely to see coin slots on street lights. That way, nobody is free-riding on my quarter....

[Hugin]

17. "... it will be perceived as someone getting something for nothing."

Ah, the bane of human kind is that attitude.

[spotbird]

12. Coffee: $1.00 per hour.

Or something like that was a menu item in a gather place in a small town where I used to live. That was before wi-fi.

[Jayberwock]

13. Here's how to solve it -

print an access code good for 20 minutes of connection on each receipt.

(And no, I'm not new, just changed my nick so it wouldn't be my name, haven't posted in a while, no I'm not famous...etc :)

[Viva_La_Revolution]

14. Welcome back then!

:)

[wildflower]

19. That's an interesting idea...

maybe someone will pick up on it.

[kentauros]

20. That would probably work for most

but not me as my little computer/keyboard device (AlphaSmart Dana) is for writing and editing only, yet people always ask me what kind of laptop it is ;) The few places I go have never balked at me sitting there for two or three hours writing because I am always there for a meal, too.

The best I ever saw for this "problem" was at House of Pies: $2.50 minimum per hour to sit. And since that's a diner, too, and has waitstaff, the one-person parties are seated at the tiny tables or on the stools at the counter.

[progressivebydesign]

16. About time.... I HATE how people take over the tables for hours.

I went to a local place recently to meet with someone over coffee, for business. We were relegated to some dinky little table off in the back because all of the other tables were taken with people using a computer and spreading out books and papers, treating it like a home office or study room. They nurse one cheap drink and stay for hours and hours. My daughter manages a a location of a large coffee chain, and it drives her crazy that they cannot say a word to people who conduct hours of business at one of the large tables, and have ordered a $2.00 tea. It's a problem, a BIG problem, with students. This is a problem with bookstores, too. Students come and set up in the cafe with their homework, and take books from the shelves to do their work, while drinking a bottle of water for $1.50. Then leaving the books to be reshelved by the staff. It's not a library, and it's not an office. Rude people ruin it for everyone.

[customerserviceguy]

21. What??!! You mean the marketing idea of giving away

free Internet to people to just sit there like it's a freaking library was financially unsustainable?

I'm shocked!

[Doremus]

22. Very sad to see the original cyber cafe in our little town close.

They were there 13 years.

They started with computers you could rent while eating or enjoying your coffee. The technology evolved over the years and wi-fi was installed a few years ago.

Towards the end they were having to tell people they couldn't just come in and use the wi-fi for free.

Now it's a large vacant storefront. :(

[windowpilot]

23. Charge for Wi-Fi, an hourly fee. n/t

[Klukie]

26. A just compromise....

They could have said no eat...no surf entirely but they showed that they have good intentions by limiting it to peak hours.