[mattjaynes]

Honest question: How do cafe owners make the best of workers using their cafe as a work place?

I've heard it referred to as the "laptop hobo" problem: customers that come and buy a small coffee and take up a table for 4+ hours.

How have you seen cafe owners handle this well so that they sustain the business and avoid the freeloader problem?

Sometimes I see "No Laptops" signs in cafes, but I'm sure there are better approaches.

[mikebowman]

Coffee shop I used to work at made the conscious choice not to have any customer-accessible power outlets, so people were limited by their laptop batteries. I was told when they built the place, they debated between offering free wifi, or having plugs in the cafe. They ended up offering wifi, but no plugs. Seemed to work pretty well, I don't remember there being a huge crowd of people staying long. Although it was also a small shop with fairly limited seating.

Although, that plan is faulty now, given that I could easily get 6-8 hours of work out of my Macbook, thanks to the M1 chips.

[treesknees]

It may depend on the coffee shop. There is a local cafe near me that gets customers, but I've never really seen it full. I'm sure they would love to have a crowd of people hanging out buying drinks, but also making it appear more popular and a nice place to hang out. I've been to cafes before that were silent and just awkward to be in because it was just me, my friend, and the barista.

> Although, that plan is faulty now, given that I could easily get 6-8 hours of work out of my Macbook, thanks to the M1 chips.

Heh, I was going to say, the other day I was able to use my M1 Pro laptop for nearly 8 hours and it still had around 30% battery remaining.

[rrrrrrrrrrrryan]

The people who try to order a single black coffee and plop down for 8 hours (the aforementioned "laptop hobos") are almost assuredly going to be using an older laptop with a beat up battery.

People who can afford a latest gen MacBook with great battery life are also the people who can afford fancier drinks every couple hours.

[debesyla]

My local caffee that I often visit with a laptop usually just plainly asks to leave if you are at the table for more than 1 hour without ordering anything :-D I have no problem with that and it doesn't seem like there is a lack of laptop-users and study-groups in the caffee, I guess other people are understanding too :-D