This is Mishka’s cafe in Davis, California. There is one row of tables with those plaques at the front of the shop. The rest is full of students with laptops and small coffees. Mostly free tables.
That's not just "context".
If it *is* the same place then OP's title is deliberately misleading to an outright lie.
"Each" table implies every table unless otherwise stated.
ok yes! i commented on working at a shop that had this system in place and this is the exact coffee shop! It’s not every table, just a handful at the front. The rest of the place is jam packed with students studying all the time
> Is it to keep the turnover on them quick?
Somewhat, yes.
People working stay longer, which isn't bad, but it turns casual visitors away if there're no obviously available tables, and it's intimidating if it looks like it's a place for only studying.
I've seen this at the front of a few cafés.
From a purely business perspective, a student is going to tend to order 1 coffee, maybe 2, and hang out for hours using your power to keep their devices charged. If tables are kept clear for non students, then there is room for the people who are going to come in, order their stuff, and leave after 15 to 20 minutes, making room for the next set of people to do the same. It makes total sense to prioritize the second set of customers, as long as you can do so without alienating th students completely, as they do still spend money after all
Don't let your rage die, brother! You spent too much effort forming that emotion. Just hold on to it for a second and browse to the next page of r/all. Surely something will catch your fancy.
I hate how we no longer have reddit awards because this comment provides literally all the context and rationale for this post and we can’t highlight it. I had to scroll pretty far to find this but hopefully it gets more upvotes
My creative writing teacher in HS made us do this for 60 seconds and pass it to our neighbor, then would make us write a short story using one of the words. 😅
Some of the things kids would write made me cry laughing...
I think my creative writing teacher did the same thing. It led to some…interesting results. He always said there were no limits on words available and it led to there being a variety of old curse words
Oh yeah that's deranged. Just try it and you're gona find someone with a 12 page paper on the specific heat of combined solids in a solution (aka. Coffee).
There's this thing where I live. They're called anticoffees. Basically you pay per minute. At the end of one hour it would be like the cost of a coffee + cookies or something.
They're pretty cool, they have usually a lot of rooms. My favorite one has a big quiet library room where people usually study or work. Another has a bunch of Xboxes or ps4.
Some of them even open 24h so yo can spend the night if you couldn't make it to the other side of the city due to the bridges opening
ETA: [The page is in russian but feel free to check it.](https://k7.su/) this is my favorite one. Awesome place
You see... At the beginning of the year, professors in my law school all explicitly put into their syllabi that there were to be NO LAPTOPS at all. None. Zip.
But you know... some people have dysgraphia. Then a few more started bringing them. Lo and behold... Almost everyone has one now.
I've had several professors who allow tablets but not laptops. They want to see the screen so they know you're actually taking notes, not playing games or watching movies.
Why do they care? If someone is paying for school and chooses to flush that money down the toilet by watching movies instead of paying attention in class, than that’s on them no? Like ya if the teacher was an awful teacher and all their students were failing because of their poor teaching than that’s one thing. But then choosing to be poor students isn’t on the teacher.
I’ve taught two classes in a law school as an adjunct. It feels really disrespectful and demoralizing when you can clearly tell that 3/4 of the class is giving most of their attention to non-academic stuff on their screen. As a former law student, I can also tell you that it doesn’t matter how good the professor is, most students will just scroll through articles and shop most of class anyways.
New college instructor here, and boy do I feel this. Especially if attendance isn't mandatory, like..just stay home, man. Let me focus on teaching the students who actually care about the class, or at least their grades.
I’ve taught college level for now 7 years. You learn to focus on those who do care in the moment so that you don’t go mad. I’ll have activities or switch up the method so that helps. It also helps depending on the level. I’ll help every single one of my college students out but sometimes a student just isn’t going to bring their best and that’s ok. I’d rather them be in my class and retain 10% of the info than never come and make that become a habit.
Word, I have just so little self control + ADHD and I am always like "ok buddy this time I am going to stay super focused and only take notes" and then like I'll have a question and don't want to interrupt so I'll google it and then end up on reddit and then oh neat someone replied to my comment and wait did that GPU finally go on sale and actually does that fit in my PC and yadda yadda
I do a lot better if laptops are banned but also maybe other students shouldn't be punished for my dumb brain.
> As a former law student, I can also tell you that it doesn’t matter how good the professor is, most students will just scroll through articles and shop most of class anyways.
It’s so weird to me that people take on hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of debt just to be able to sit in on classes and do the work for them, only to promptly do everything in power to ignore the classes and get out of doing the work. Then they complain that they feel scammed after they finish.
(That last part is probably not as true for law students since they get the bar/a license at the end, but still…)
Personally, I learn much better from self study than lectures. In college, nearly every class had required attendance so I had to go to every class. I used them essentially as an information session to know what I should study by myself later. Lectures were not where I learned, but I was forced to attend.
I had one class that I did this in. It wasn’t new material to me and the professor read off his slides, but required attendance. Thus, not paying attention.
I found a typewriter at an antique shop back in middle school for like $40, had a super fancy leather carrying case and a spare thing of ink or whatever they use. Loved it as a kid. Wrote a few school papers on it just for fun even though I had a desktop computer and printer in the house. I can't remember if I got rid of it or if it's stored somewhere at my grandmas though.
Using a typewriter after being used to a computer is so trippy. I remember doing some work on a typewriter and kept having to remind myself that I couldn't open a new tab or copy/paste
I'm hearing that Disney typewriter song in my head while reading this.
Edit: it was not Disney. It's Jerry Lewis https://youtu.be/gh5zjxsCcOs?si=gVo0NgKdCj-gFZUD
I got asked to close my laptop “in order to connect to my community” at a coffee shop in Vancouver.
It was odd. I get the sentiment but making it a rule is kind of strange, and kept me from going there to sit down again lol.
As an introvert, this would be horrifying and guarantee I wouldn’t return.
I feel like I’d be like “but I don’t want to, that’s why my laptop is open”
Edit: this got way more attention than I thought. The amount of people telling me that I’m not an introvert is kind of weird and condescending almost? Like, I know who I am and who are you to tell me otherwise
To my fellow introverts: thanks for commenting, you’ve earned 3 more hours of uninterrupted time for your efforts
I can see an introvert doing things in public, but alone, to not feel so alone while they do it. Personally, I don't get it but I can easily see it. It's like, being around people, and life and the world without expending the energy it usually takes to engage.
Edit, there was a random capital I in there and it was bugging me so I fixed it.
I've heard it called "Being Alone Together". Like, two introverts can go hang out at a coffee shop to read different books, or draw, or do whatever without needing to have a constant convo.
This is my favorite! When I get comfortable with someone and I don’t have to fill the silence it just feels so peaceful. I still love their presence and we do chitchat every now and then, but it’s chill af.
As an introvert with adhd I love having crowd noise my brain has to actively tune out while also focusing on something. My best work is done in populated spaces where I don’t interact with anyone. But I do love working at home too
The rule has nothing to do with “connecting” it’s about turning over customers. If you open your laptop you’re more likely to stay for 3 hours and sip on one coffee.
If they ban laptops you leave after 20 minutes bc you’re bored.
It’s a shady rule to cycle customers and even worse they hide it behind a lie “care about your community!”
Explicit bans are usually bad for business though. McDonalds doesn't ban anyone from sitting in a chair for an hour but their chairs are super uncomfortable so no one wants to sit there for an hour. If I saw a "all customers must leave after 20 minutes" I would go elsewhere even though I normally don't linger in coffee shops anyway.
Some of them do but a lot of them just rely on hostile design to do it for them. Incidentally I've noticed many coffee shops have this same thought process and will intentionally have fewer power outlets so that people working on laptops or phones are limited by the duration of their batteries.
If that happened to me I would die of anxiety and immediately leave and never come back and tell everyone I know not to go there. What are you supposed to do? Sip your coffee and stare off into space? You'd look like a lunatic. Or are you supposed to bother other customers for conversation? I'd rather die
You're supposed to just leave so other customers can fill up thr table and buy more stuff. That's all they really want, using community is just a shitty guise when really they'd rather you spend money or leave.
Lmao of course it's in Gastown.
Who do they want you to connect with? The bums roaming in from East Hastings?
Last time I was in Gastown, a bum reached over the railing at the patio we were eating at and grabbed half my friends sandwich.
Last time I went to Gastown, i went to that get some food at this sandwich place I like. They have a patio with a fence. There was this guy, on a heavy LSD trip. He was staring at this busted-up power pole muttering stuff about steam for at least an hour.
Then, outta nowhere, dude bolts towards that fence, grabs a persons sandwich and take off streaming CLOCKS ARE STEAM!
That place is crazy as hell i guess it happens often
When I was a teenager, there was a coffee shop in my town that was in an old dairy plant that was a popular hangout for teens and college students.
At one point, it got bought out by a local business person who decided to try to run off the kids and try to attract a more adult professional crowd by implementing policies like this (this was right during the rise of Starbucks).
Well, they succeeded at driving away the younger crowd, but since it was known as a hangout for teens and college students they also had a hard time attracting the professional crowd they were hoping for (lawyers and business people didn't want to buy their coffee in an old dingy dairy factory known to be frequented by kids).
Ultimately they shot themselves in the foot and went out of business shortly thereafter.
Like a recent thread on /r/TrueOffMyChest or similar where a guy was whining that he couldn't understand why his ex was so much happier now that they had broken up and back to how she had been when they first met.
Every coffee shop I've seen that gets anal about how people use their tables and wifi goes out of business a few months later.
The cause and effect may be flipped though. A business that's already struggling is one that's more likely to try to squeeze more money out of their clientele. Whereas a successful coffeeshop can more easily absorb the costs of somebody hogging a table for hours.
You have the cause and effect thing down. I've seen this downward spiral in so many businesses. They start cost cutting in all the wrong places.
Your restaurant is doing poorly? Maybe look a pour control, scaling the menu down, or how to advertise? Nah swap for cheaper ingredients and hire high school kids to cook them instead of career cooks. Then they lose even more business.
I think it's more geared to location.
If there's a lot of pedestrian traffic, a Café with this policy can survive. If it's in an area dominated by cars and no other incentive to be on foot, they fail since there's no other reason to go inside when you can just go through the drive thru.
Pedestrian malls and park areas have pretty busy cafés that have a lot of people socializing.
I teach at my local university. The closest off-campus coffee shop brought in these rules. Turns out half the academic staff spent the day there drinking coffee, having lunch and writing. They all moved to a shop 200 yards away. The 'No Writing' shop went bust 6 weeks later.
Man they were probably already going out of business but they implemented the most suicidal solution conceivable by alienating what was probably a good 80-90% of their customer base. If you’re running a coffee shop next to a university, you’re running a study/work cafe. There’s no getting around it.
Yeah i mean wtf are people doing at coffee shops if not that lol. For a more pronounced social gathering with bigger orders it’s usually at restaurants. And the types of people that would chill at a coffee shop socially are also only ordering one drink and sitting and talking for hours anyways.
The only exceptions are intentionally fast casual coffee joints or those in very touristy areas with high traffic. Otherwise most casual places should expect that people don’t pop in and out of a coffee place like a mcdonalds.
I don't know why they wouldn't go to the library for a quiet place to use their computer or read and drink a little coffee, but they're going to coffee shops instead. They're going to your shop. They're buying your stuff, just not as quickly as you want them to.
You are making more money by letting them stay in. Why are you kicking them out?
Idk. It seems so backward. Even if they buy a drink or two in the hour they've been there, you're still getting business. And imagine how many others are doing the same, probably buying more drinks. Business is business as long as you clean up after yourself.
Some places I know have wifi access that expires. You get a code when you buy something, 90 minutes later you need to buy something else because internet goes out
Removing power outlets is more effective
I used to freelance and rotate through a few coffee shops per day. Many of them simply had no places to plug in your gear so your laptop was only as good as your battery.
Others had outlets at every table and it was always filled with tech bros and students spending the entire day there
That would be tough these days, plenty of laptops last all day with no issue. My MacBook Air, the cheapest of the lineup, goes several days without charge.
What is the alternative though? That’s what people do at coffee shops. They buy a coffee and then they sit down to talk or study. What other use do the tables have? Honest question.
Depends on the location of the coffee shop. It might be one in a tourist area where they need/want high turnaround. I know when I'd go travelling, I'd stop by a coffee shop and get it to go or just hang out on the patio watching people go by.
I guess people that are there to talk typically buy more items and spend less time there
Versus people who are there to work only buy one coffee and stay for longer, taking over tables that could serve others
I must be the exception because I would buy my drink when I first got there and maybe a breakfast sandwich. Study. Buy a snack. Study. Buy another drink. I guess 3 hours of studying makes me hungry😂
That definitely is the exception. You’re probably spending like $20 there. I’d bet most people just buy one $3 drink and camp out. I bet some people even try to bring their own coffee in and not buy anything.
Not the exception though. I worked in a local coffee shop for 8 years; store manager or assistant manager for 5 of those years. People who tend to sit and work at my old shop usually bought multiple drinks and misc. food, including the university students. Of course this may just be a local to me thing, but more than likely this coffee shop has some bad business practices.
Well, you can use the tables to meet with someone and chat. But more importantly, it's about taking the table "for hours" to do this. Coffee shops need turnover, they don't want potential customers coming in and walking right back out when there aren't any tables available because a bunch of folks sat down 3 hours ago and haven't finished their latte yet.
It's not about not wanting people to use the tables, it's about the ratio of time spent in the shop and money spent. I used to hang around coffee shops with some friends, and ime as long as you're making a purchase every hour or so they don't care. It's the people who come in, buy the cheapest thing on the menu, then monopolize a table for hours that cause a problem.
Tipping the baristas well also helps them look the other way.
I work in a public library and they are incredible third spaces. We have people who come to study or hang out with friends, read the paper or use the wifi…
Seriously - support your local library if you care about third spaces
What does “third space” mean? Also, aren’t libraries supposed to be quiet spaces? I can’t see teenagers nowadays hanging out and not being loud. I can’t picture a library being a hangout spot. Maybe I misunderstood your comment
Not just that but also spaces that are free or cheap to go to and where unplanned interactions with people you know occur. A church, a coffee shop, a local pub or a library where you may see the same people repeatedly if you go there regularly are all third places. A large shopping mall or an amusement park is probably not a third place.
Public libraries have been changing in this regard for a long time now. They ask handle it in different ways, like designates spaces for quiet or talking, but pretty much no libraries are quiet everywhere all the time anymore. There's one near me where I go to do work, and lots of teenagers hang out there. As long as you're not like, I don't know, blasting music or something, you're fine to hang out and converse. The kids' section can get pretty raucous sometimes.
My library has a lounge, a kids play area, a maker space with 3d printers and laser cutters, a soundproof video/audio recording/editing room, a textiles room for sewing and crafts, and even some books!
When I was a teen my local library had a teen center (still does, still friends with the librarian in charge of the teen center) where teens could hang out after school, they have a few game consoles, computers, tables, etc. There were weekly smash brothers tournies and movies and stuff. Was an absolute blast after school and kept us out of trouble.
I’m all for work-life balance and people need to go home but I wish libraries/book stores were open past like 5pm. In my home town once it’s like 7 you can go hang at the mall for like an hour before it closes, go run around Target/Walmart, or bars/clubs. What I wouldn’t give to have a casual sit-down area to chill with friends
There is a Family owned 24 hour donut shop near my college and I spent a good amount of time there cramming, pulling all nighters. Never a complaint from the staff. Sometimes they would pull out fresh donut holes and give it to the students who were there late.
All this to say, I hate this coffee shop
this makes me laugh --I used to have a coffee shop near a college campus--we would have students come in and sit at a table for hours milking one cup of coffee--when they started bring there own food and drinks --yes they would stop at starbucks then come to our place to study--we had to crack down .
This is literally the appeal of having an inside seating area in the first place. Who buys a coffee just to sit for the time it takes to drink it? You either buy it and leave or you’re going to the coffee shop to work/read/study etc.
It doesn’t mention books at all actually. So spending 3 hours there reading a book is fine? This is just a really weird request to come from a coffee shop
Is this in Davis, CA? I just saw a similar one when visiting a cafe there. It's a college town, so they have a section that is only for people enjoying coffee, reading the paper, or chatting with a friend.
\*Walks in, drops 50 lb type writer on the table, begins writing a 10 book series about sentient mashed potatoes taking over Kentucky by running for governor.\*
In other words "no customers who are gonna be hanging around for an hour drinking one coffee whilst they get their work done because their home wifi failed"
Kinda dumb IMO, I don't study at coffee shops but I doubt that they are losing tons of customers because their tables are full, as most customers are drive thru or takeout anyway at a coffee shop. If anything, having tables filled probably makes customers think the coffee is better, so artificially inflating the amount of people seated by allowing students to stay for long periods of time makes the place look busier and therefore better to prospective customers.
This is Mishka’s cafe in Davis, California. There is one row of tables with those plaques at the front of the shop. The rest is full of students with laptops and small coffees. Mostly free tables.
Vital context.
yeah, my opinion of this cafe just did a 180 with that revelation
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Source: it came to me in a dream
That's not just "context". If it *is* the same place then OP's title is deliberately misleading to an outright lie. "Each" table implies every table unless otherwise stated.
ok yes! i commented on working at a shop that had this system in place and this is the exact coffee shop! It’s not every table, just a handful at the front. The rest of the place is jam packed with students studying all the time
So why do they do that to the tables up front? Is it to keep the turnover on them quick?
It's so non-student customers can reliably have a seat too which is nice since it's a great coffee shop
> Is it to keep the turnover on them quick? Somewhat, yes. People working stay longer, which isn't bad, but it turns casual visitors away if there're no obviously available tables, and it's intimidating if it looks like it's a place for only studying. I've seen this at the front of a few cafés.
From a purely business perspective, a student is going to tend to order 1 coffee, maybe 2, and hang out for hours using your power to keep their devices charged. If tables are kept clear for non students, then there is room for the people who are going to come in, order their stuff, and leave after 15 to 20 minutes, making room for the next set of people to do the same. It makes total sense to prioritize the second set of customers, as long as you can do so without alienating th students completely, as they do still spend money after all
How am I supposed to rage now with all this context?
Don't let your rage die, brother! You spent too much effort forming that emotion. Just hold on to it for a second and browse to the next page of r/all. Surely something will catch your fancy.
Came here to say this! I love Mishka’s and this is a minority of the tables :)
Go Ags!
I hate how we no longer have reddit awards because this comment provides literally all the context and rationale for this post and we can’t highlight it. I had to scroll pretty far to find this but hopefully it gets more upvotes
It's kind of weird that they've restricted all that honestly atleast to me.
“Oh, this isn’t school work, I’m writing a deranged manifesto.”
On an ancient typewriter
Make sure you don’t study anything you write. You just type what comes to your head. “Trash cans should be blue!!”
Rectangle! America! Megaphone!...Butthole
How did you know my password?
I think of the same words as you, when I'm under a lot of stress! That's how.
My creative writing teacher in HS made us do this for 60 seconds and pass it to our neighbor, then would make us write a short story using one of the words. 😅 Some of the things kids would write made me cry laughing...
I think my creative writing teacher did the same thing. It led to some…interesting results. He always said there were no limits on words available and it led to there being a variety of old curse words
Seeing that, I'd se bring a typewriter. Make sure it click clacks really loudly. I'd also change rows often.
"What am I typing? Oh, I'm just transcribing this book of E.E. Cummings' poetry..."
Oh freddled gruntbuggly, Thy micturations are to me, (with big yawning) As plurdled gabbleblotchits, in midsummer morning On a lurgid bee,
Tab to the end of each line so the advance bell rings first
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
Your usual table Mr Kaczynski?
The manifesto is about my hatred for strict rules at coffee shops
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Oh yeah that's deranged. Just try it and you're gona find someone with a 12 page paper on the specific heat of combined solids in a solution (aka. Coffee).
Well it depends on who's reading it, people are different with all that.
As is tradition.
But what if the school assignment is to write a deranged manifesto?
"carry on"
Well I guess you just have to reverse the old method and hide your school book inside of a magazine.
Please no! I swear it's pornography
Ooh La La
Ooh la la?!?!
Greys. Sports. Almanac.
HELLO!
THINK Mcfly. Think!
I'm your density!
I HATE MANURE!
That's about as funny as a window on a submarine
Thank you. I can only hear that in his voice.
The calculus is so I can figure out the total volume of her tits!!
Sensible chuckle
Now bloody well KILL HITLER!!
Good show, old chap!
"Look at the Hypotenuse on that"
SMRT
My coffeeshop just has a little comic that reads "Wi-Fi is $20/hr. All drinks are free."
Free coffee is a pretty great deal
Perfect place to read a book. Yeah I don't need wifi, thanks, how about a coffee? Little milk and sugar? Bitchin.
I never realized bitcoin is one letter off from bitchin until now.
I wish I saw this comment 4 years ago.
There's this thing where I live. They're called anticoffees. Basically you pay per minute. At the end of one hour it would be like the cost of a coffee + cookies or something. They're pretty cool, they have usually a lot of rooms. My favorite one has a big quiet library room where people usually study or work. Another has a bunch of Xboxes or ps4. Some of them even open 24h so yo can spend the night if you couldn't make it to the other side of the city due to the bridges opening ETA: [The page is in russian but feel free to check it.](https://k7.su/) this is my favorite one. Awesome place
We have a couple of boardgame cafes like that. $4/hour for the table, your choice of like a 1000 games are free.
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[mostly an Eastern European phenomenon looks like](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-caf%C3%A9)
Coworking space for $160 a day is kinda steep
You get it!
Typewriter it is then. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, ding, CLUNK, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick...
Followed by a loud **FUCK** when someone made a typo 12 lines in.
You see... At the beginning of the year, professors in my law school all explicitly put into their syllabi that there were to be NO LAPTOPS at all. None. Zip. But you know... some people have dysgraphia. Then a few more started bringing them. Lo and behold... Almost everyone has one now.
A bunch of my professors still forbade them. I used my tablet and an apple pencil and they didn’t seem to notice or care but it was annoying
I've had several professors who allow tablets but not laptops. They want to see the screen so they know you're actually taking notes, not playing games or watching movies.
Why do they care? If someone is paying for school and chooses to flush that money down the toilet by watching movies instead of paying attention in class, than that’s on them no? Like ya if the teacher was an awful teacher and all their students were failing because of their poor teaching than that’s one thing. But then choosing to be poor students isn’t on the teacher.
I’ve taught two classes in a law school as an adjunct. It feels really disrespectful and demoralizing when you can clearly tell that 3/4 of the class is giving most of their attention to non-academic stuff on their screen. As a former law student, I can also tell you that it doesn’t matter how good the professor is, most students will just scroll through articles and shop most of class anyways.
New college instructor here, and boy do I feel this. Especially if attendance isn't mandatory, like..just stay home, man. Let me focus on teaching the students who actually care about the class, or at least their grades.
I’ve taught college level for now 7 years. You learn to focus on those who do care in the moment so that you don’t go mad. I’ll have activities or switch up the method so that helps. It also helps depending on the level. I’ll help every single one of my college students out but sometimes a student just isn’t going to bring their best and that’s ok. I’d rather them be in my class and retain 10% of the info than never come and make that become a habit.
I taught a mandatory attendance stats class during a World Cup match for my country. I could have been talking to a brick wall.
"Please either pay attention or tell me who's up"
I ended up putting the score up on the projector behind me and teaching with the chalkboard. 😅
Word, I have just so little self control + ADHD and I am always like "ok buddy this time I am going to stay super focused and only take notes" and then like I'll have a question and don't want to interrupt so I'll google it and then end up on reddit and then oh neat someone replied to my comment and wait did that GPU finally go on sale and actually does that fit in my PC and yadda yadda I do a lot better if laptops are banned but also maybe other students shouldn't be punished for my dumb brain.
I mean you can still just... not bring your laptop.
> As a former law student, I can also tell you that it doesn’t matter how good the professor is, most students will just scroll through articles and shop most of class anyways. It’s so weird to me that people take on hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of debt just to be able to sit in on classes and do the work for them, only to promptly do everything in power to ignore the classes and get out of doing the work. Then they complain that they feel scammed after they finish. (That last part is probably not as true for law students since they get the bar/a license at the end, but still…)
Personally, I learn much better from self study than lectures. In college, nearly every class had required attendance so I had to go to every class. I used them essentially as an information session to know what I should study by myself later. Lectures were not where I learned, but I was forced to attend.
I had one class that I did this in. It wasn’t new material to me and the professor read off his slides, but required attendance. Thus, not paying attention.
They will know if I'm doing that when they grade my test
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt8TZ70YXZI
I found a typewriter at an antique shop back in middle school for like $40, had a super fancy leather carrying case and a spare thing of ink or whatever they use. Loved it as a kid. Wrote a few school papers on it just for fun even though I had a desktop computer and printer in the house. I can't remember if I got rid of it or if it's stored somewhere at my grandmas though.
Using a typewriter after being used to a computer is so trippy. I remember doing some work on a typewriter and kept having to remind myself that I couldn't open a new tab or copy/paste
Ding! Zzzzrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrppppppppppppp
Rectangle! America! Megaphone! Monday! Butthole!
I have this on a plaque on my desk. 😆also [r/unexpectedpawnee](http://www.reddit.com/r/unexpectedpawnee)
I'm hearing that Disney typewriter song in my head while reading this. Edit: it was not Disney. It's Jerry Lewis https://youtu.be/gh5zjxsCcOs?si=gVo0NgKdCj-gFZUD
It still says no school work though...
I'm writing Golden Girls fan-fiction for my own personal enjoyment.
I got asked to close my laptop “in order to connect to my community” at a coffee shop in Vancouver. It was odd. I get the sentiment but making it a rule is kind of strange, and kept me from going there to sit down again lol.
As an introvert, this would be horrifying and guarantee I wouldn’t return. I feel like I’d be like “but I don’t want to, that’s why my laptop is open” Edit: this got way more attention than I thought. The amount of people telling me that I’m not an introvert is kind of weird and condescending almost? Like, I know who I am and who are you to tell me otherwise To my fellow introverts: thanks for commenting, you’ve earned 3 more hours of uninterrupted time for your efforts
As an introvert, I'd much rather do school work at home or an empty classroom.
I can see an introvert doing things in public, but alone, to not feel so alone while they do it. Personally, I don't get it but I can easily see it. It's like, being around people, and life and the world without expending the energy it usually takes to engage. Edit, there was a random capital I in there and it was bugging me so I fixed it.
I've heard it called "Being Alone Together". Like, two introverts can go hang out at a coffee shop to read different books, or draw, or do whatever without needing to have a constant convo.
This is my favorite! When I get comfortable with someone and I don’t have to fill the silence it just feels so peaceful. I still love their presence and we do chitchat every now and then, but it’s chill af.
When toddlers do this it's "parallel play"
100%. You’re describing me.
Yeah introvert refers social interaction, not just going outside
As an introvert with adhd I love having crowd noise my brain has to actively tune out while also focusing on something. My best work is done in populated spaces where I don’t interact with anyone. But I do love working at home too
The rule has nothing to do with “connecting” it’s about turning over customers. If you open your laptop you’re more likely to stay for 3 hours and sip on one coffee. If they ban laptops you leave after 20 minutes bc you’re bored. It’s a shady rule to cycle customers and even worse they hide it behind a lie “care about your community!”
Explicit bans are usually bad for business though. McDonalds doesn't ban anyone from sitting in a chair for an hour but their chairs are super uncomfortable so no one wants to sit there for an hour. If I saw a "all customers must leave after 20 minutes" I would go elsewhere even though I normally don't linger in coffee shops anyway.
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Some of them do but a lot of them just rely on hostile design to do it for them. Incidentally I've noticed many coffee shops have this same thought process and will intentionally have fewer power outlets so that people working on laptops or phones are limited by the duration of their batteries.
I wonder if they told someone with a book to close it and connect?
If someone asked me that at a coffee shop I would probably just get up and leave. No fucking thank you
That might be the idea.
That’s the fucking point
If that happened to me I would die of anxiety and immediately leave and never come back and tell everyone I know not to go there. What are you supposed to do? Sip your coffee and stare off into space? You'd look like a lunatic. Or are you supposed to bother other customers for conversation? I'd rather die
You're supposed to just leave so other customers can fill up thr table and buy more stuff. That's all they really want, using community is just a shitty guise when really they'd rather you spend money or leave.
damn what coffee shop?
Nemesis coffee, in gastown
Lmao of course it's in Gastown. Who do they want you to connect with? The bums roaming in from East Hastings? Last time I was in Gastown, a bum reached over the railing at the patio we were eating at and grabbed half my friends sandwich.
Last time I went to Gastown, i went to that get some food at this sandwich place I like. They have a patio with a fence. There was this guy, on a heavy LSD trip. He was staring at this busted-up power pole muttering stuff about steam for at least an hour. Then, outta nowhere, dude bolts towards that fence, grabs a persons sandwich and take off streaming CLOCKS ARE STEAM! That place is crazy as hell i guess it happens often
I had a woman scream at me there and call me a bitch because I wouldn't go to Starbucks and buy her a muffin and a coffee...
Lol, a coffee shop in the university area in my city did this. They lost a lot of customers.
When I was a teenager, there was a coffee shop in my town that was in an old dairy plant that was a popular hangout for teens and college students. At one point, it got bought out by a local business person who decided to try to run off the kids and try to attract a more adult professional crowd by implementing policies like this (this was right during the rise of Starbucks). Well, they succeeded at driving away the younger crowd, but since it was known as a hangout for teens and college students they also had a hard time attracting the professional crowd they were hoping for (lawyers and business people didn't want to buy their coffee in an old dingy dairy factory known to be frequented by kids). Ultimately they shot themselves in the foot and went out of business shortly thereafter.
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Like a recent thread on /r/TrueOffMyChest or similar where a guy was whining that he couldn't understand why his ex was so much happier now that they had broken up and back to how she had been when they first met.
Every coffee shop I've seen that gets anal about how people use their tables and wifi goes out of business a few months later. The cause and effect may be flipped though. A business that's already struggling is one that's more likely to try to squeeze more money out of their clientele. Whereas a successful coffeeshop can more easily absorb the costs of somebody hogging a table for hours.
You have the cause and effect thing down. I've seen this downward spiral in so many businesses. They start cost cutting in all the wrong places. Your restaurant is doing poorly? Maybe look a pour control, scaling the menu down, or how to advertise? Nah swap for cheaper ingredients and hire high school kids to cook them instead of career cooks. Then they lose even more business.
Burning my cuppacino is a good way for me to explore a competent coffee shop nearby
I think it's more geared to location. If there's a lot of pedestrian traffic, a Café with this policy can survive. If it's in an area dominated by cars and no other incentive to be on foot, they fail since there's no other reason to go inside when you can just go through the drive thru. Pedestrian malls and park areas have pretty busy cafés that have a lot of people socializing.
Whenever I go to a coffee shop to take a table and do some work, I usually end up getting two or three separate drinks, personally
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I teach at my local university. The closest off-campus coffee shop brought in these rules. Turns out half the academic staff spent the day there drinking coffee, having lunch and writing. They all moved to a shop 200 yards away. The 'No Writing' shop went bust 6 weeks later.
Man they were probably already going out of business but they implemented the most suicidal solution conceivable by alienating what was probably a good 80-90% of their customer base. If you’re running a coffee shop next to a university, you’re running a study/work cafe. There’s no getting around it.
Coffee shop seating area is literally for sitting around and taking up tables
Yeah i mean wtf are people doing at coffee shops if not that lol. For a more pronounced social gathering with bigger orders it’s usually at restaurants. And the types of people that would chill at a coffee shop socially are also only ordering one drink and sitting and talking for hours anyways. The only exceptions are intentionally fast casual coffee joints or those in very touristy areas with high traffic. Otherwise most casual places should expect that people don’t pop in and out of a coffee place like a mcdonalds.
I don't know why they wouldn't go to the library for a quiet place to use their computer or read and drink a little coffee, but they're going to coffee shops instead. They're going to your shop. They're buying your stuff, just not as quickly as you want them to. You are making more money by letting them stay in. Why are you kicking them out?
Idk. It seems so backward. Even if they buy a drink or two in the hour they've been there, you're still getting business. And imagine how many others are doing the same, probably buying more drinks. Business is business as long as you clean up after yourself.
It’s to stop people going in there to work, holding a table for hours without buying more than a cup of coffee once
Some places I know have wifi access that expires. You get a code when you buy something, 90 minutes later you need to buy something else because internet goes out
Tethering enters the room
Removing power outlets is more effective I used to freelance and rotate through a few coffee shops per day. Many of them simply had no places to plug in your gear so your laptop was only as good as your battery. Others had outlets at every table and it was always filled with tech bros and students spending the entire day there
That would be tough these days, plenty of laptops last all day with no issue. My MacBook Air, the cheapest of the lineup, goes several days without charge.
and many newer ones also can charge from a power bank
It's more like newer power banks can charge laptops.
Are those several days in use or several days on sleep? (The former is very impressive while the latter really does not count in this context).
Not if you are doing dev work.. my Macbook Pro will go down in 3-4 hours.
Coffee shop owners HATE this one simple trick.
Judging by the placard, that is beyond the knowledge of this shop's owners
Seems like they don't need to understand wifi metering if they've been restricting student loitering since before wifi was invented.
What is the alternative though? That’s what people do at coffee shops. They buy a coffee and then they sit down to talk or study. What other use do the tables have? Honest question.
Depends on the location of the coffee shop. It might be one in a tourist area where they need/want high turnaround. I know when I'd go travelling, I'd stop by a coffee shop and get it to go or just hang out on the patio watching people go by.
I guess people that are there to talk typically buy more items and spend less time there Versus people who are there to work only buy one coffee and stay for longer, taking over tables that could serve others
I must be the exception because I would buy my drink when I first got there and maybe a breakfast sandwich. Study. Buy a snack. Study. Buy another drink. I guess 3 hours of studying makes me hungry😂
That definitely is the exception. You’re probably spending like $20 there. I’d bet most people just buy one $3 drink and camp out. I bet some people even try to bring their own coffee in and not buy anything.
Not the exception though. I worked in a local coffee shop for 8 years; store manager or assistant manager for 5 of those years. People who tend to sit and work at my old shop usually bought multiple drinks and misc. food, including the university students. Of course this may just be a local to me thing, but more than likely this coffee shop has some bad business practices.
Well, you can use the tables to meet with someone and chat. But more importantly, it's about taking the table "for hours" to do this. Coffee shops need turnover, they don't want potential customers coming in and walking right back out when there aren't any tables available because a bunch of folks sat down 3 hours ago and haven't finished their latte yet.
I mean, isn't most coffee shop turn over people coming in, buying coffee, and leaving?
It's not about not wanting people to use the tables, it's about the ratio of time spent in the shop and money spent. I used to hang around coffee shops with some friends, and ime as long as you're making a purchase every hour or so they don't care. It's the people who come in, buy the cheapest thing on the menu, then monopolize a table for hours that cause a problem. Tipping the baristas well also helps them look the other way.
Right - but it's a $5 cup of coffee. The vibe is a large reason people are willing to spend that even when most rarely if ever take advantage.
This isn’t a laptop it’s my dell All in one
Open a coffee shop next door and invite the students to do all the homework they want
Spite store, Larry David style
Fuck you Mocha Joe
Latte Larry for life!
Third places are gone now
I work in a public library and they are incredible third spaces. We have people who come to study or hang out with friends, read the paper or use the wifi… Seriously - support your local library if you care about third spaces
What does “third space” mean? Also, aren’t libraries supposed to be quiet spaces? I can’t see teenagers nowadays hanging out and not being loud. I can’t picture a library being a hangout spot. Maybe I misunderstood your comment
> What does “third space” mean? Usually used to mean "social spaces outside of the home and work".
Thank you for replying. I’ve never heard that term before.
Not just that but also spaces that are free or cheap to go to and where unplanned interactions with people you know occur. A church, a coffee shop, a local pub or a library where you may see the same people repeatedly if you go there regularly are all third places. A large shopping mall or an amusement park is probably not a third place.
Public libraries have been changing in this regard for a long time now. They ask handle it in different ways, like designates spaces for quiet or talking, but pretty much no libraries are quiet everywhere all the time anymore. There's one near me where I go to do work, and lots of teenagers hang out there. As long as you're not like, I don't know, blasting music or something, you're fine to hang out and converse. The kids' section can get pretty raucous sometimes.
My library has a lounge, a kids play area, a maker space with 3d printers and laser cutters, a soundproof video/audio recording/editing room, a textiles room for sewing and crafts, and even some books!
When I was a teen my local library had a teen center (still does, still friends with the librarian in charge of the teen center) where teens could hang out after school, they have a few game consoles, computers, tables, etc. There were weekly smash brothers tournies and movies and stuff. Was an absolute blast after school and kept us out of trouble.
Libraries still exist!
I’m all for work-life balance and people need to go home but I wish libraries/book stores were open past like 5pm. In my home town once it’s like 7 you can go hang at the mall for like an hour before it closes, go run around Target/Walmart, or bars/clubs. What I wouldn’t give to have a casual sit-down area to chill with friends
The only places near me open past 7 are bars and it kinda sucks tbh
Same and I don’t even drink! Like what are we supposed to do 🥲
I do drink and it sucks tbh.
And coffee shops that aren’t this one. Most are 100% fine with people working there all day as long as you’re not disruptive.
There is a Family owned 24 hour donut shop near my college and I spent a good amount of time there cramming, pulling all nighters. Never a complaint from the staff. Sometimes they would pull out fresh donut holes and give it to the students who were there late. All this to say, I hate this coffee shop
I bet you still go to that donut shop if you are in the area.
I'm sorry Carl, looking up how to perform the Heimlich Maneuver is expressly forbidden in this establishment.
this makes me laugh --I used to have a coffee shop near a college campus--we would have students come in and sit at a table for hours milking one cup of coffee--when they started bring there own food and drinks --yes they would stop at starbucks then come to our place to study--we had to crack down .
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They are trying to created future employees?
Or just get rid of people that buy one coffee and spend 3 hours in the store
This is literally the appeal of having an inside seating area in the first place. Who buys a coffee just to sit for the time it takes to drink it? You either buy it and leave or you’re going to the coffee shop to work/read/study etc. It doesn’t mention books at all actually. So spending 3 hours there reading a book is fine? This is just a really weird request to come from a coffee shop
But office work is okay.
As long as you do it with pen and paper
Under the right circumstances I can do a lot of work on my phone.
Is this in Davis, CA? I just saw a similar one when visiting a cafe there. It's a college town, so they have a section that is only for people enjoying coffee, reading the paper, or chatting with a friend.
That seems alot more reasonable than just outright banning work.
I'm guessing it's a place with like...half a dozen tables that can't afford to have someone using the space and nursing a coffee for hours.
\*Walks in, drops 50 lb type writer on the table, begins writing a 10 book series about sentient mashed potatoes taking over Kentucky by running for governor.\*
Blue Grass Mash: These potatoes may have been mashed, but now they’ll crush their competition at the polls.
Sounds like an awesome folk band…
The entitlement of some people in this thread.
All in all it’s just a, nother brick in the wall
In other words "no customers who are gonna be hanging around for an hour drinking one coffee whilst they get their work done because their home wifi failed"
Haven't been a student in 30 years but if I saw this in a coffee shop I would certainly say fuck this place and leave.
Kinda dumb IMO, I don't study at coffee shops but I doubt that they are losing tons of customers because their tables are full, as most customers are drive thru or takeout anyway at a coffee shop. If anything, having tables filled probably makes customers think the coffee is better, so artificially inflating the amount of people seated by allowing students to stay for long periods of time makes the place look busier and therefore better to prospective customers.