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Having The Coffee Shop As Your Office
from the not-so-bad dept
Whenever the discussion comes up about coffee shops and restaurants offering free wireless connectivity, someone always says that it's a terrible idea because those people will crowd up the tables and never leave after buying a single cup of coffee. This seems to be a simplistic view of things, and some coffee shops that offer wireless have found that having people who come in and use the place all day as their office has been quite beneficial. The Dallas Morning News has a profile of one coffee shop that seems to host a large number of "regulars" who use it as their office. They tend to buy a lot of product, bring in more customers (for meetings and such), as well as be generally helpful. In the article, one guy who works every day at the coffee shop as a freelance graphic designer helped the shop design their new menus for free. As for the big fear of them hogging up the tables? It's no fun to be working when the place is overcrowded anyway, so most of them have no problem moving on at points when it's really crowded. Instead, they tend to spend the most time there at off-peak hours, when there's plenty of free space.
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CEO Of Starbucks Said No Big Deal
The WSJ had an interview with the CEO of Starbucks in yesterday's issue where they asked him this exact question about people who "office" all day with wireless. He said it was not an issue and had no problem with it.
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Cafe Orlin in NYC
I spent four or five months doing consulting work out of Cafe Orlin in NYC. In that case the wifi was (and is) provided by a friend who lives next door to the cafe, but the basic idea is much the same.
There was a core group of about a dozen people who would spend much of each day at the "office." It a good deal for the cafe, because we spent heavily and tipped well (if you're there every day you want to have a good relationship with the people who work there); it was also a good deal for many of us using Orlin as a workplace, because there was virtually always a "co-worker" there to provide feedback on ideas, advice, debugging, or to loan you the crossover cable that you forgot to bring. For that matter, I think that I benefitted from the mindset that comes from actually "going to work" every day.
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