Indeed. In a coffee shop, one has two priorities when talking to another person: - Being heard by the other person easily enough - Not being heard by anyone e

Indeed. In a coffee shop, one has two priorities when talking to another person: - Being heard by the other person easily enough - Not being heard by anyone else. The second one is important so that you don't need to put as much effort into self censoring or rapidly adjusting volume when saying something especially private. In a silent coffee shop, there is no volume low enough such that other people can't hear you. Lack of privacy is obviously not a deal breaker but obviously neither is piped music for a lot of people. The best coffee shop I've been to was a series of small rooms without doors with about four tables in each room. Often you would be the only group in the room especially if you were a big group. Even if you weren't, the walls absorbed a lot of noise. It was nice.