cafes, wireless, and Davis

[jadelennox]

story found via dk_medianation:

From the Globe on wireless in cafes:

In Davis Square, Diesel Cafe charges for wireless -- about $14 a month -- but co-owner Jen Park said she also confronts customers who are not buying food. Perhaps the worst offenders are the people who buy coffee at the Starbucks across Elm Street, then head for the comfortable red booths at Diesel with their Starbucks cup in hand, she said.

``My approach tends to be friendly, like `Can I get you anything?' " Park said. ``Usually, the answer is `no.'
...
Up the street in Davis Square, O'Naturals offers wireless as a free amenity, but recently began shutting off its signal during its busiest hours. Manager Sonja Seglin said laptop users used to linger on a single cup of coffee during lunch, leaving nowhere for newcomers to eat their soups and sandwiches. The lunch crowd complained, and O'Natural's now shuts off its Wi-Fi access from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
...
The way Brandli sees it, Diesel offers ``a bargain" as far as workspaces go: Each month, she spends about $60 on food, plus $14 for the internet, much less than the cost of renting an office in Davis Square.

I've seen people sit in the Diesel with nothing for an hour during busy times, then take a lunch bag with sandwich and drink out of their bags and happily chow down without paying a cent.

Comments

[magpie-leah.livejournal.com]

I'm self-employeed and work at home doing doing computer-related stuff. It's really nice to be able to get out every once in a while and go to a coffee shop to work. Paying for wireless access is a total bargain when compared to renting an office. But I try not to do this more than once a week because I think it's really unfair to use a cafe as your office and take up space that others might want to use.

I'm so intrigued by this whole topic though. I often wonder how all the laptop users these days affect a coffee shop's bottom line. Like does the amount a laptop user pay for wireless make up for the fact that (a) they perhaps don't by very much food/coffee considering how long they are there and (b) have potentially displaced several sets of customers who might just walk away due to lack of free tables.

I've been self-employed and working at home for a couple of years now. The solitude can be really hard at times. I've looked many times into renting an office and the lowest price I've seen is something like $400-$500/month which is expensive and that really doesn't solve the solitude problem anyway. It would be an interesting business idea if someone took a large open space and rented it out to people as shared workspace. I've been wishing I could find something like that. Since everyone would be there to work, it could also serve as a way of allowing people to put their heads together and bounce ideas off one another which is something really valuable that you lose when you don't work in an office anymore.