I’m not sure how I feel about this article I just read. There’s a coffee shop in Brooklyn that charges you to sit there drinking your coffee. You get charged BY THE MINUTE. Hmmm.
“Realizing that letting people buy one coffee while using your electricity for hours isn’t the best way to make money, a new café in Brooklyn has introduced a pay-to-play model. Instead of billing customers for individual coffees, Williamsburg’s Glasshour, which is marketed as an ‘anti-café,’ charges a fixed rate of $6 dollars for the first hour you’re there, plus 10 cents for every minute after until a customer hits four hours.”
You can’t be charged more than $24 regardless of how long you stay, but I can’t say I’d be chomping at the bit to be a patron. I get where they are coming from, I do. I know it’s hard for small businesses to make money sometimes. But I just don’t think it’s a business model I like. I’m not entirely sure how much an internet connection for a coffee shop would run monthly, and I’m not sure if that’s the issue or if it’s the low turnover and seats held captive.
What do you think? Are they being rude charging that way, or brilliant? Do you think it’s a fair price to pay for wi-fi access? Would you head to their shop?
Jane says
I get it, but I wouldn’t go there 🙂 part of going to coffee shops for me is the experience and relaxing vibe. Maybe they’d be better off spending a little $$ on creative seating to make room for more people.
Tammy says
So if you go there and get three lattes in that hour that you are sitting there, totally worth it. Minus the sugar rush and ensuing headache from that much caffeine, but still…people are going to be getting their “money’s worth”, unless there is some sort of catch on what type of coffee they are allowed to get while they are there. Most drinks beyond the basic coffee are right around the $5 mark so it really isn’t that much more for one hour.
Elise says
When I first saw the title of the email on my phone, I thought to myself that if it were $7 or less, I would be fine with it (I can’t believe that it seems so reasonable in NYC! Everything is more expensive there, even more than here in the SF Bay Area). So… 🙂 Being a small business owner (I’m an at-home contract bookkeeper), I respect other people’s pricing and time. Most people don’t hang around a coffee shop for more than 20-30 minutes, but if you do, it’s nice to get a refill. A shop here offers a small pot of tea for $3.50, and I always want more, but the hot water tap is behind the counter so I don’t bother asking (most of the time). This would let me get another pot (with a fresh tea bag – BONUS) within an hour, and I’d be perfectly happy with that situation!
-I just read the article, wondering the location in NYC (Williamsburg, Brooklyn, not Manhattan, but still), and they say you can also eat as many granola bars as you want. SO, for $6 you can have a nice, probably quiet, 1 hr lunch!!! Totally a bargain 😉
Marlo says
Having owned a small business where people come and sit for HOURS every day, over weeks, this is the right option. It would cost us way more than $24 to keep the place open, for that one person, who would buy nothing all week.
Mavis, I think you’re wrong on this one. I think our culture has come to believe that the one coffee you’re drinking will totally pay for the utilities and building rent and employees for the 8 hours you’re in the store, and damnit, you’re entitled to sit all day with your one coffee. It doesn’t work that way. I’m glad someone is finally saying that it doesn’t work that way.
Cheri says
As someone who will stay for a couple of hours in a coffee shop to work on my computer (mostly on my own battery, not an outlet), I can understand why the coffee shop is trying this strategy. I don’t think I really like how they’re doing it, from what I understand of it, but it makes sense that they want to do something to keep people from taking advantage of their free perks–lighting, wi-fi, electricity, etc. I think that maybe a better way is to try a friendlier approach first, like a small sign at each table that requests that patrons purchase a product for each half-hour or hour that they spend in the shop. I would respect that, because I know that they are a business that needs to make money off of the patrons who spend time in it. Or they can charge a little for wi-fi or something. The way this place is doing it sounds like something that would turn me off. Besides, I almost always drink plain black coffee, so $6 for the first hour seems unreasonable for that.
Katie says
I’m with them on this one. Our neighborhood has a lot of local coffee shops, and they have turned into destination workspaces for a whole lot of people. I’ve quit going to most of them during the day because there is nowhere left to sit. I used to really enjoy going for about a half an hour and having a cup of coffee and pastry while I read the newspaper or a book and ran into neighbors. It’s a bummer. The library is almost the same, people rush into ours when the doors open, and then spend the entire workday there. I love shared spaces, but around me, they’ve turned into “parking” spaces.
Emma says
I get it where they are coming from, but I wouldn’t go. I don’t sit at coffee shops that long, it wouldn’t benefit me.
Jane says
This is a great idea, especially in New York City!!!!
New York is VERY expensive. Coffee can be $5 a cup! Even with unlimited refills that’s not a deal. How much coffee can a person drink without jittering out the door?
I work at a Starbucks in North Carolina and I can verify that people spend HOURS in there, taking up tables.
Just last night we had 20 college kids come in for a study group. About 10 of them bought Frappacinos, so they spent in total about $40, took up four tables, took all the chairs so no one else that came in had anywhere to sit, and stayed for four hours.
Now we have plenty of regulars that come in every night, and a drive through, so it didn’t hurt our business much but your average not corporate owned coffee shop? It would be a disaster financially. You can’t pay rent anywhere making $10 for every hour your business is open.
This place is charging just $6 an hour so yes, I’d be all over that in NYC especially, and really anywhere. If you’re going to sit there for hours writing your blog, or manuscript, or whatever, $6 is nothing.
I get the hesitation but it’s really a very good deal when you look at it from any perspective. It’s just different.
They could have just raised their prices and lost customers. Instead they are trying something different. Good for them!
Cheri says
For me $6 an hour is not a good deal for coffee, since it typically costs only about $2/12 oz where I live in CO. To make it worth it for me, I’d have to drink three 12 oz cups of coffee in 1 hour, which is too much, unless I’m using their electricity outlets, which I typically don’t. I can see how it might be worth it in NYC, though. I am curious, though. Why doesn’t Starbucks–or any coffee shop–ask non-paying customers who hog all the seating or stay too long to either buy a product or leave? This doesn’t seem unreasonable at all. In fact, I think they should defend the customers who actually want to buy coffee and enjoy drinking it in the shop, not the customers who don’t.
I experienced this in another way just last night. I went to a thrift store to make a donation. They have special spots right in front of the donation door that are even marked, but one car was just parked there with no one in it. They were clearly in the store. I had to make a couple of long hauls from the parking lot and suggested to the attendant that the store should call the license plate over the loudspeaker to ask them to move for the sake of other donors. But he said they couldn’t do anything. I think that if that car is making it hard for people to make their donations, which it was, the store should be defending the donors, not the customer who misparked.
Candice says
i wonder how much they would charge ‘to go’ coffee drinkers. I usually only grab a coffee in town if I have a lot of errands to run and need a cuppa to keep me going. I’d rather enjoy my own brew at home with a good read after running around town although it does smell delicious wafting out of shoppes, That said, i find it difficult to plop down five or six dollars to indulge myself in the brew.
Emily says
It’s interesting reading the comments, because a fair portion come at it from the perspective of “will I get my money’s” worth if I spend $6 an hr, or $24 for 4 and are saying they wouldn’t go. If you take your logic and apply it to the shop owner, you get the situation that is currently causing the issue. What if the store owner eyeballed you, and wondered if they would get their moneys worth by allowing you to enter. They can’t know what your intentions are when you enter. Bottom line, people are in business to make a living. There is this old fashioned thing called courtesy, where if I patronize your establishment , I am then allowed to remain in said establishment until I consume my order. There is this ideology among (what I observe to be the younger generation) that patronage is optional, that if I park it in your store, (and take up the space that a paying customer could and would be using for hours on end that is okay. Personally, I think it’s tacky to go into a business, plug in your electronics and proceed to use the space as a pop up office. I 100% understand and support the decision this shop has made, and perhaps it will give people pause next time they plop themselves down in a place of business.
Lisa MTB says
Nope. For $24 a day (if you are working from the coffee shop), find another person (or several people) who works remotely, rent an APARTMENT for your office and buy a cheap coffee maker 🙂 Or just work from home or your hotel room … I mean that’s $500-ish a month per butt-in-chair if you work there every day, for at least 4 hours …
I’d go an buy a cup of coffee and tip well, but I wouldn’t rent coffee shop space by the hour or minute.
Lisa MTB says
Just as a follow up, I do prefer to buy brewed coffee and beans from our local shop around the corner, but I don’t go there to use Wi-Fi or to stay for more than a few minutes. It just seems weird to me to charge for use of the space/facility when you might be meeting a friend or taking a cup to go … I guess if it had a $6-$24 “cover”, I’d be more likely to choose another venue unless I had a really specific purpose in mind …
Lisa MTB says
Another option (to curb customers who “move in”) might just be to pull the plug on the Wi-Fi. That will definitely limit the number of people who hang around for multiple hours, but not those who are there to grab breakfast or a quick lunch.
bobbi dougherty says
I get it, but wouldn’t do it. I can drink coffee for free at home. But I am not one to go to coffee shops and drink coffee either. 🙂
Judy Bisbee says
As a CPA analyzing businesses including restaurants for how they make money, one of the biggest factors in restaurants is how many times you can “turn” a table. Having someone come and stay for a long time will kill your business. If you have someone waiting on your table you are costing them the ability to earn their living; therefore, you should give a generous tip if you are there for a while. This is one reason upscale restaurants are so expensive. They have a low table-turn rate. Others have commented on people using it as an office. I agree that taking up a seat for an excessive amount of time is not fair to the business owner. The WiFi usage is not the point.
Lace Faerie says
We have a locally owned coffee shop that has free 2 hours of wi-fi with a beverage purchase. They must have a program that produces and track each log in because 2 hours and it’s gone.
Years ago, my hubby decided that Internet was a luxury item and got rid of cable tv and Internet. I lived happily without the tv. But Internet access was another matter. This happened at a time when my son required of me a 20 min drive, three hour wait and then a 20 minute drive home. So instead of sitting in my car reading, I started using that down time for Internet time. After seeing the daily charges for two beverages five days a week, suddenly paying for Internet at home became a bargain!
Marcia says
That is a very good point!
Brianna says
I was a barista in my college days (late 90’s early 2000) and it wasn’t a problem with people over extending their stay at the coffee shop. We had comfy couches and seating, a bookshelf with games and books, a fireplace…..it was encouraged to have customers hang out for a bit. I have been back to my old shop two years ago and I was shocked. They now have bistro style tables and stools everywhere and all of the comfort items are gone. I assume it wasn’t because of a remodel, but a sign of the times. Everybody was on their laptops on the Internet with earbuds and many looked like they had probably been there awhile as they had empty coffee cups if any. I had my 3 kids with me and bought them hot chocolate and we sat down to enjoy it and I had several patrons eyeing me for bringing my kids in and sitting down with them. Many closed their laptops in disgust and went to seats further away from us and one even kept “sshhh” ing us as my kids and I talked. Patrons don’t own the shops and if they want to do their work in a public place then they need to deal with the environment changing, it isn’t a library. Anyways, I am all for the shops to charge by the time you spend there. People aren’t playing chess anymore there, they are personally claiming their territory.
Emily says
Great point, coffee shops are not libraries.
The sense of entitlement is appalling to me. It’s like squatters rights.
MEM says
I can understand why the coffee shop has to do this but it wouldn’t be a shop I would frequent (free coffee and tea at my office!). I work in Boston and the elderly and (presumably) homeless would buy a cheap cup of coffee or two from the McDonald’s that used to be near my office and make it last for hours. Was it so they could keep warm? have some place to go? not be so lonely? I don’t know. It wasn’t for free wi-fi. I agree with the person who suggested the coffee shop just get rid of the wi-fi if lingerers are a problem. Charging by the minute seems miserly and would be a pain to manage.
Emily says
This would have made my previous knitting groups cost prohibitive. When we met at coffee shops everyone would always buy something, but we would easily stay a few hours. My current group meets at a book store where they do just let us sit for free. Maybe they would offer a group discount?
Maritza says
I think that it’s a culture thing. NYC is a beast of a different color and so for them it makes sense. I mean it’s no different then going to a club. You go there maybe you don’t drink you’re there for the atmosphere. So you pay the cover charge. If you like it you don’t go.