Some Coffee Shops Actually Pulled the Plug on Laptop Users in 2009.

[Sigma]

They Sit for Hours and Don't Spend Much

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.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124950421033208823.html



Wow, if this hits Jacksonville, looks like some of the "intellectuals" on this board will be screwed.

[downtownparks]

They Sit for Hours and Don't Spend Much

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.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124950421033208823.html



Wow, if this hits Jacksonville, looks like some of the "intellectuals" on this board will be screwed.

Interesting stuff. It is a shame that often these 'free' perks for paying customers gets abused and ultimatly come out of the business owners pockets. This is sort of akin to going to a Mexican restaurant, and just eating the free chips, but not buying dinner. Kind of a douchie move.

[Lunican]

I haven't really seen an overwhelming number of intellectuals bogging down coffee shop wifi in Jacksonville so far. Maybe one day.

[NotNow]

So you actually should have experience in a subject before claiming to have some expertise?

[Ocklawaha]

I haven't really seen an overwhelming number of intellectuals bogging down coffee shop wifi in Jacksonville so far. Maybe one day.

Until they create a laptop that resembles a monster truck and produces endless cans of beer, you probably won't ever see it here.

OCKLAWAHA

[downtownparks]

So you actually should have experience in a subject before claiming to have some expertise?

Thats easy. You just have to claim experience in everything. Duh!

[Sigma]

Well, I think the article is more about those individuals who come in and purchase their coffee and perhaps a danish or muffin, but then they linger around for hours squatting on table space.  Anyone who has ever remained in the restaurant business for long knows that table turnover is a key to making a profit.  Most patrons with common sense realize this too and don't abuse it.

But then there are those that abuse it and don't care.  I believe this would be the type of person in your comment DTP.  The type that would actually feed off the restaurant, probably not even ordering a drink except for water.  This person would be as parasitic as the bums who rush into the main library for their morning bath and other, ahemmm, things.  If someone did this to me in my restaurant more than a couple times, they'd be asked not to come back.  "Sorry to hurt your feelings, but I'm trying to make a living here."

Etiquette, a little goes a long way.

[BridgeTroll]

This seems to go back to those who think everything is or should be free.  That there is an entitlement to free electricity and WiFi and airconditioning and heat.  Clearly the ones abusing do not pay for their own internet access and believe they are entitled to use someone elses.  Clearly' according to the article... some business owners are fed up and turning these abusers away.  They have decided that the loss of a few patrons cups of coffee while taking up an entire table is worth it.

[Lucasjj]

A coffeehouse is not a customer's place of business or personal hang out. Many coffee houses provide that sort of atmosphere, but after a certain point, the customer is taking advantage of the situation.

There obviously should be different rules for different places according to demand for seating. In the article it mentions certain hours where laptops would not be accepted unless they were being used while eating. This would make sense for most places, as there is an obvious time when demand for tables is at its peak.

[BridgeTroll]

Here is the entire article... just so we all know what it actually says...

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.

View Slideshow

The Wall Street Journal

Laptop policy at Naidre' cafe in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

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Real Time Econ: Why Job Hunt at Starbucks? Where is your favorite Wi-Fi hot spot? "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.

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.
Some coffee shops say they still welcome laptop users, if only because they make the stores look busy. For some, the growing number of laptop-carrying customers with time on their hands is reason to expand. "I had to add more outlets and higher speed" in early June, says Sebastian Simsch, 40, the co-owner of Seattle Coffee Works. Starbucks Corp. coffee houses, which in some cases charge for Wi-Fi, and bookstore chain Borders Group Inc., which always charges for Wi-Fi, don't have any plans to change their treatment of laptop customers. Neither does bookstore giant Barnes & Noble Inc., where the Wi-Fi is complimentary.

But in New York, the trend is accelerating among independents. At Cocoa Bar locations in Brooklyn and on the Manhattan's Lower East Side, a five-month-old rule forbids laptops after 8 on Friday and Saturday nights. At Espresso 77 in Jackson Heights, Queens, owners covered three of five electric outlets six months ago after its loosely enforced laptop-use restrictions failed to encourage turnover. At two of three Café Grumpy locations -- one in Brooklyn and the other in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood -- laptops are never welcome.

Laptop backlash poses particular difficulties for people without offices, says Leah Meyerhoff, 29, a film director and free-lancer. She long has used coffee shops to interview cast and crew and to work on pre-production. Now, she says, "it's a constant search for places with the Internet where I can sit and focus without being frowned upon."

"Good luck staying open when you're turning half your clientele out on a Friday night," Hannah Moots, 23, wrote about Cocoa Bar on Yelp, a Web site where customers rate retailers. When Ms. Moots, who aspires to be an archaeologist, met her boyfriend at the coffee shop after 8 p.m. on a Friday to work on graduate-school applications, she was ushered out, she says, even though the place was almost empty.

"We had to power down or leave instantly," Ms. Moots wrote in her blog. She left and went to a different cafe, where she later expressed her dismay on the Web. Masoud Soltani, a Cocoa Bar owner, confirms that he sent her a Yelp message: "I remember you very well...I would not think you would write such bad stuff about us." Mr. Soltani says she is no longer welcome in his store.
Customers' frugality has reached extremes in the recession, the 40-year-old Mr. Soltani says. Some patrons show up with a tea bag for a free hot-water refill or quietly unwrap homemade sandwiches, he says. The Soltani brothers tried to adapt by adding sandwiches to their assortment of pastries and chocolates two months ago. And they want to be able to change the atmosphere after dark. "We lower the light, and it's chocolate, wine and couples holding hands," says Masoud's brother Bahman. "What's the guy with the laptop doing here?"

Some customers are sympathetic. Norm Elrod was "devastated," he wrote on his blog -- called "Jobless and Less" -- when he spotted "little plastic covers on the electrical outlets, secured with little padlocks" at Espresso 77. "But I knew why they had done it," the 37-year-old unemployed marketing manager says.

"I used to be one of the abusers," Mr. Elrod confesses on his blog, "sipping a two-dollar cup of coffee in a to-go cup for hours." But, he says in an interview, now he practices what he considers better coffee-shop etiquette, lingering over his laptop during off-hours and spending more money.
At Café Grumpy in Chelsea, Ty-Lör Boring, a 32-year-old chef, says he often uses his laptop at coffee shops, but loves it when there are none around because, then, people talk to one another.

"You can isolate yourself behind a laptop," he says, "but look at this place: Almost everyone is having a conversation."

[Lunican]

Locally, and downtown especially, the following sentence rings true...

"Some coffee shops say they still welcome laptop users, if only because they make the stores look busy."

[Overstreet]

Free WIFI.......mmmm. Yep my mechanic has it in the waiting room. Most hotels/motels have it. My office has it.   A couple of restaurants have it where I go, but reality is I'd rather watch the sports on the tube and/or chat with friends. But I have seen the "intellectuals" in Paneras siting working/playing on the lap top hogging a table.  I know one guy that thinks women are impressed by it.  He's been single a long time.

Some places in the burbs charge for the connection. You don't see as many laptops there. I have been on the road and needed the connection to check email and conduct business. On those occasions free is appreciated but pay as you go works too.

With me "intellectuals" is a unflattering word. Worse than "douchie". Or perhaps "cheap" in this case trying to use free web access instead of purchasing it at home.

[BridgeTroll]

No doubt Lunican... the situations described in New York and San Francisco do not really apply in Jacksonville.  Getting people in with free access is a business generator here.  The places referenced in the article had customers waiting for tables or people bringing there own food and tea bags.  Congrats to the owners to ask them to leave and come back when it is not busy...

[Overstreet]

..........Without people hanging out, there isnt any business at all, ergo the bands, poetry readings, art shows etc.....................

Which back in the '60s and '70s was designed to have people interact face to face not keystroke to keystroke.  

[Lucasjj]

I am not for or against a place banning laptop use. I think the business will face the consequence of their choice by either profiting through more turnover, or suffering from alienating a group of customers. Obviously as a laptop wielding customer, you will be able to find a coffeehouse somewhere that will suite your needs.

Stephen you said "Coffee, after the morning shift, is an entirely social kind of a business." Which is why I like the idea of limiting laptop use to certain hours.

Although a this is a small sample, in going to Three Layers, a person using a laptop on a Saturday night taking up an entire table for themself could be a problem considering the number of people there and the size of the space. However, when I went Wednesday after Art Walk, around the same time I was there on a Saturday night, there was plenty of space for the people there occupying a whole table for themself and their laptop.

Whatever the feeling on this, the business has the choice in the matter, and will feel the repercussion.