I wouldn’t even dare to do this, sit there for six hour and barely get anything.
Incredibly disrespectful behaviour – however i wonder how often this actually occurs?
I wouldn’t dare to do this myself, knowing you are occupying a table and hence taking away the owner his income.
I mean, why not communicate to the people in his store, instead of blasting the music and booting people off the wifi?
Just go by their table and ask “Another Coffee?”, or explain the situation, hang a sign, …
Isn’t it way easier just to put up some signs and notify the customer in a respectful way that a minimum of consumptions is required? Was in a coffee shop in Ghent that hat such a rule, in Copenhagen you also see it quite often.
Completely understand his frustration but pretty childish response from the owner
The sheer passive aggresiveness here.
Just ask the customers what they’d like to order, or elso tell them to make place for paying customers looking for seats and refer them to a library.
They could change to the anticafe formula: You get unlimited free coffee, but pay for the time you spend.
I just can’t with the stupidity of the owner. There’s so many possibilities. How about reserving a specific part of the café for people with laptops and charging them by the hour (free coffee included)? Going by their table to ask for orders? (I’d forget ordering too if I’m immersed in my work.) Hanging up signs that laptops aren’t welcome? Disabling wifi entirely? I completely understand he’s fed up, but there’s smarter solutions than the petty stuff he’s trying.
We need more study cafes like in Japan.
Cover up the outlets or replace them by USB ports. And stop offering free Wi-Fi. Replace it with a timed captive portal and give access codes printed on the receipt.
Hell, you could even consider replacing the tables by ones with so little surface it’s impractical to place a laptop on there.
Do these things and the moochers will go elsewhere.
Oh so luring people in with the free wifi sign is ok but use it too long and its a problem? Hang a sign and stop bitching
Childishly passive aggressive – just talk to your customers and put up signs o_o
I love how everyone here blames the owner instead of the hundreds of students that lack common courtesy (or which used to be common I suppose).
I dealt with this waaaaay back in 2011, and I can confidently say not many people in this thread seem to have worked in a café?
Your profitability depends on volume of customers and average ticket – and when rent is through the roof and energy costs are eye-watering these days, you simply can’t make it work through “good quality” alone. It’s a delicate balance, so I sympathize with the manager.
At my old café, if we noticed it was getting full and a customer had been there for a while (and was clearly working and not consuming something), our instructions were to go up to the person and offer another coffee and hope they took the hint.
Some people were more than willing to buy something else, others got huffy about “profits over community”. I wasn’t paid enough to care, but I can see the point.
This dude randomly kicking people off the wifi is… not how I’d go about it. IDK how long this guy has been a caféuitbater but it’s something I used to see with newer managers – they’d instantly go for the nuclear option for all sorts of things.
There’s an elegant solution to this:
* Buy stuff, the receipt has a Wi-Fi code at the bottom.
* Wi-Fi code is good for 1 hour (or 2 hours or whatever)
* At the end of 2 hours, your internet cuts. Pop-up comes up, something that says “Thanks for your visit!” Time to go or make a new purchase.
I go with my laptop to coffee bars a lot but after 20-40 mins of not ordering something i start to feel guilty so i spend quite a bit. But since the energy crisis this might actually be cheaper than warming your house all day and you get good coffee on top
Huh. I feel like I’ve seen this story a few times now, like once every 2 years or so.
This would not be a problem if public libraries were open daily. We need public spaces where people can just be and Belgium has nearly zero of that.
One of the places on paardenmarkt in Antwerpen (right by the uni for the unfamiliar) has a few reserved study tables and then 60% or so with “no laptops here-enjoy the company” signs. I think that’s a compelling option to split the difference and constrict the study-hoggers a bit.
Just throw them out.
I don’t understand the specific battle against laptopowners though, this was already a longtime practice of pensioned people who come in at 9, hog the best window seats and sit there for hours with just a coffee. LPT from them: ask for a can of warm water so you can cheaply extend your coffee/stay.
4euro/h. One drink included..
I don’t think it’s that easy for the owners, or not as easy as you all seem to think it is. I know the owner of another cafe and he does talk to the students when they sit there for hours during busy periods or when they even bring their own drink in a thermos, but these are also the people that fight him on it and then write a bad review calling the owner out for being rude. Not everybody is reasonable and during rush hours you just don’t have the time to attempt a conversation with all of these laptopplakkers.
I have sympathy for these students. But there are libraries where this would be perfectly acceptable, but cafes are also just trying to survive.
Maybe I’m biased because I know a couple small cafe owners in a student city and have had conversations about this with them, but I don’t think this owner’s behaviour is rude or childish.
I work in a café and we follow a more American style in which we don’t go to the tables, except to pick up dishes.
Personally laptopplakkers don’t bother me that much, especially when it’s calm. But the main problems I run into are:
– When it starts to become an issue, the café becomes so busy that the added effort of asking people to buy more is almost impossible (especially since we are only 2 people)
– Laptopplakkers are often not the considerate type, and there’s really not anything you can do when they say no
– I don’t get paid enough to care
But laptopplakkers aren’t the worst, we sometimes have people that come, sit down and don’t order anything, or even people that bring their own food and drinks??? Who does that
Wij adviseren grindcore. Jaagt alle hipsters weg.
I just looked at the Google reviews to see any aftermath of the press exposure.
All the bad reviews are about the loud music ! It seems to harm them more than it helps.
Too bad. Petty response but maximizing the number of customers per unit time is a pretty American thing to do (in both restaurants and cafés).
They’ll come around a take an order every half hour or so. I enjoyed not having this in Europe but in light of recent economic developments I guess it’s impossible.
27 comments
I wouldn’t even dare to do this, sit there for six hour and barely get anything.
Incredibly disrespectful behaviour – however i wonder how often this actually occurs?
I wouldn’t dare to do this myself, knowing you are occupying a table and hence taking away the owner his income.
I mean, why not communicate to the people in his store, instead of blasting the music and booting people off the wifi?
Just go by their table and ask “Another Coffee?”, or explain the situation, hang a sign, …
Isn’t it way easier just to put up some signs and notify the customer in a respectful way that a minimum of consumptions is required? Was in a coffee shop in Ghent that hat such a rule, in Copenhagen you also see it quite often.
Completely understand his frustration but pretty childish response from the owner
The sheer passive aggresiveness here.
Just ask the customers what they’d like to order, or elso tell them to make place for paying customers looking for seats and refer them to a library.
They could change to the anticafe formula: You get unlimited free coffee, but pay for the time you spend.
I just can’t with the stupidity of the owner. There’s so many possibilities. How about reserving a specific part of the café for people with laptops and charging them by the hour (free coffee included)? Going by their table to ask for orders? (I’d forget ordering too if I’m immersed in my work.) Hanging up signs that laptops aren’t welcome? Disabling wifi entirely? I completely understand he’s fed up, but there’s smarter solutions than the petty stuff he’s trying.
We need more study cafes like in Japan.
Cover up the outlets or replace them by USB ports. And stop offering free Wi-Fi. Replace it with a timed captive portal and give access codes printed on the receipt.
Hell, you could even consider replacing the tables by ones with so little surface it’s impractical to place a laptop on there.
Do these things and the moochers will go elsewhere.
Oh so luring people in with the free wifi sign is ok but use it too long and its a problem? Hang a sign and stop bitching
Childishly passive aggressive – just talk to your customers and put up signs o_o
I love how everyone here blames the owner instead of the hundreds of students that lack common courtesy (or which used to be common I suppose).
I dealt with this waaaaay back in 2011, and I can confidently say not many people in this thread seem to have worked in a café?
Your profitability depends on volume of customers and average ticket – and when rent is through the roof and energy costs are eye-watering these days, you simply can’t make it work through “good quality” alone. It’s a delicate balance, so I sympathize with the manager.
At my old café, if we noticed it was getting full and a customer had been there for a while (and was clearly working and not consuming something), our instructions were to go up to the person and offer another coffee and hope they took the hint.
Some people were more than willing to buy something else, others got huffy about “profits over community”. I wasn’t paid enough to care, but I can see the point.
This dude randomly kicking people off the wifi is… not how I’d go about it. IDK how long this guy has been a caféuitbater but it’s something I used to see with newer managers – they’d instantly go for the nuclear option for all sorts of things.
There’s an elegant solution to this:
* Buy stuff, the receipt has a Wi-Fi code at the bottom.
* Wi-Fi code is good for 1 hour (or 2 hours or whatever)
* At the end of 2 hours, your internet cuts. Pop-up comes up, something that says “Thanks for your visit!” Time to go or make a new purchase.
I go with my laptop to coffee bars a lot but after 20-40 mins of not ordering something i start to feel guilty so i spend quite a bit. But since the energy crisis this might actually be cheaper than warming your house all day and you get good coffee on top
This reminds me of the [Fleabag](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCWvDA2v694) series.
Huh. I feel like I’ve seen this story a few times now, like once every 2 years or so.
This would not be a problem if public libraries were open daily. We need public spaces where people can just be and Belgium has nearly zero of that.
One of the places on paardenmarkt in Antwerpen (right by the uni for the unfamiliar) has a few reserved study tables and then 60% or so with “no laptops here-enjoy the company” signs. I think that’s a compelling option to split the difference and constrict the study-hoggers a bit.
Just throw them out.
I don’t understand the specific battle against laptopowners though, this was already a longtime practice of pensioned people who come in at 9, hog the best window seats and sit there for hours with just a coffee. LPT from them: ask for a can of warm water so you can cheaply extend your coffee/stay.
4euro/h. One drink included..
I don’t think it’s that easy for the owners, or not as easy as you all seem to think it is. I know the owner of another cafe and he does talk to the students when they sit there for hours during busy periods or when they even bring their own drink in a thermos, but these are also the people that fight him on it and then write a bad review calling the owner out for being rude. Not everybody is reasonable and during rush hours you just don’t have the time to attempt a conversation with all of these laptopplakkers.
I have sympathy for these students. But there are libraries where this would be perfectly acceptable, but cafes are also just trying to survive.
Maybe I’m biased because I know a couple small cafe owners in a student city and have had conversations about this with them, but I don’t think this owner’s behaviour is rude or childish.
I work in a café and we follow a more American style in which we don’t go to the tables, except to pick up dishes.
Personally laptopplakkers don’t bother me that much, especially when it’s calm. But the main problems I run into are:
– When it starts to become an issue, the café becomes so busy that the added effort of asking people to buy more is almost impossible (especially since we are only 2 people)
– Laptopplakkers are often not the considerate type, and there’s really not anything you can do when they say no
– I don’t get paid enough to care
But laptopplakkers aren’t the worst, we sometimes have people that come, sit down and don’t order anything, or even people that bring their own food and drinks??? Who does that
Wij adviseren grindcore. Jaagt alle hipsters weg.
I just looked at the Google reviews to see any aftermath of the press exposure.
All the bad reviews are about the loud music ! It seems to harm them more than it helps.
Too bad. Petty response but maximizing the number of customers per unit time is a pretty American thing to do (in both restaurants and cafés).
They’ll come around a take an order every half hour or so. I enjoyed not having this in Europe but in light of recent economic developments I guess it’s impossible.
Belgium Anno 2022