5 ms·

My question is how many cafes really make money off of people who come in and sit for an hour or two and order more than one drink. Don't most people just stop

My question is how many cafes really make money off of people who come in and sit for an hour or two and order more than one drink. Don't most people just stop by, grab a cup, and then go on their way? I've never seen a cafe a-la 'friends' where people hangout and constantly buy things. In my experience the only people who DO hang out at cafes and order multiple items are those doing work for extended periods of time.

jonnycomputer 9y ago
oh, gosh, how many hours have I spent just hanging out at cafes shooting the breeze?
- vilhelm_s 9y ago
  But are you constantly buying things when doing so? If I meet up with a friend at a cafe, it seems we usually just buy some coffee when we get there and then sit there and chat without buying more.
  - jonnycomputer 9y ago
    back when I had the time to do that I didn't have so much money. probably a drink per 1.5 hours or so.
  - pwthornton 9y ago
    People chatting may buy more food and drinks, but an important difference is that people on laptops often take up entire tables that can seat a bunch of people. It's not just how much someone buys but how much space they take up. There have been times when I was walking with someone to grab coffee and chat, and we passed up going to that place because all of the tables were taken by people alone on their laptops. Some places have a policy that you can only use a laptop at the bar seating, which eliminates the issue of people on laptops taking up a ton of space.
stcredzero 9y ago
I've never seen a cafe a-la 'friends' where people hangout and constantly buy things. I've had my entire social life based on hanging out like this at one point in my life. (Late 90's, early 2000's) It was in a walkable neighborhood, the kind where a friend might invite you to dinner because she saw you from her apartment balcony. I'd have to say those were some of the best years of my life.
pwthornton 9y ago
You are either young or have lived your life in a dystopian movie. :) Friends and Frazier are accurate portrayals of how cafe culture used to be. People used to go to coffee shops for hours, drink coffee and other stuff and just shoot the breeze. It was pretty great, and in a lot of ways better than a bar. The one by me growing up had a big leather couch in front of a fireplace that we liked to sit at, and it was pretty great in the Ohio winters. In the DC area we have a big Ethiopian community. Ethiopians are big into coffee and coffee shops. If you go to a Ethiopian coffee shop, it's still like that. Some of the higher-end coffee shops that have sprung up in the area are also like that. We live by one that we often go to as a family every Saturday morning and get coffee and breakfast and just chat. I have found the chain coffee shops have been taken over more and more by people camping out on laptops. It probably also depends on how much your area has actually coworking spaces. I have also found that if a place offers more of a true cafe menu, you'll find more people talking. If a place can be something where you would realistically get lunch and coffee, it's much more likely to be lively. And for me, I'd rather be in a lively place regardless if I were there for lunch or if I wanted to work on my laptop a bit.
- protonimitate 9y ago
  Interesting. I guess it must be a product of my age (born in '91). Thanks for the insight.
  - irq11 9y ago
    Consider that “Friends” first appeared when you were ~3, and it should be more intuitive. I feel really old...
brandonmenc 9y ago
> I've never seen a cafe a-la 'friends' where people hangout and constantly buy things. I'm becoming an old, so I'll chime in with the others. Before laptops and - maybe more importantly - before cellphones, the coffee shop was the place to hang out and meet up. From 1993-2000, I practically lived in the coffee shop downtown. We had one main shop in a city of about a quarter million. We didn't get a Starbucks until 2001, of you don't count the Barnes and Noble. It was awesome. It was the nerve center of our music and art scene. It was the only place where college kids and lawyers downtown could get a latte. It was the only place where kids who couldn't get into bars yet could hang out, and the people who could go to bars would pregame there with a cup of coffee. There was a lot of cross-pollination. I met every single one of my close friends at the time at that cafe. We would sit there all day long and talk, smoke cigs, play chess, venture out into the park or the rest of the city, then meet back up at the cafe. And it was packed - in the summer, there would easily be a hundred people hanging out in and around this tiny place. We'd spill out onto the sidewalk. It was almost like a daily block party. But back to the whole pre-cellphone pre-laptop thing - absolutely no one was there to work. It was where you went after work, to do your socializing. And without cellphones, it was a rallying point - everyone got out of work or were at their home phones at different times, so if you wanted to meet your friends, you had to hang out at the coffee shop because the odds were high they'd show up there too, uncoordinated. This concept is foreign to anyone in their 20s. The 90s coffee shop culture was real, it was awesome, and for better or worse, it'll never come back. Sometimes this makes me sad, but the upside is that I don't waste half of my day alone hoping to bump into friends. But - so many good memories!
tedmiston 9y ago
It depends on the kind of neighborhood you live in too. You definitely see the hang out type coffee shops more in hipster neighborhoods vs like business districts or suburbs.

jonnycomputer 9y ago

oh, gosh, how many hours have I spent just hanging out at cafes shooting the breeze?

vilhelm_s 9y ago
But are you constantly buying things when doing so? If I meet up with a friend at a cafe, it seems we usually just buy some coffee when we get there and then sit there and chat without buying more.
- jonnycomputer 9y ago
  back when I had the time to do that I didn't have so much money. probably a drink per 1.5 hours or so.
- pwthornton 9y ago
  People chatting may buy more food and drinks, but an important difference is that people on laptops often take up entire tables that can seat a bunch of people. It's not just how much someone buys but how much space they take up. There have been times when I was walking with someone to grab coffee and chat, and we passed up going to that place because all of the tables were taken by people alone on their laptops. Some places have a policy that you can only use a laptop at the bar seating, which eliminates the issue of people on laptops taking up a ton of space.

stcredzero 9y ago

I've never seen a cafe a-la 'friends' where people hangout and constantly buy things. I've had my entire social life based on hanging out like this at one point in my life. (Late 90's, early 2000's) It was in a walkable neighborhood, the kind where a friend might invite you to dinner because she saw you from her apartment balcony. I'd have to say those were some of the best years of my life.

pwthornton 9y ago

You are either young or have lived your life in a dystopian movie. :) Friends and Frazier are accurate portrayals of how cafe culture used to be. People used to go to coffee shops for hours, drink coffee and other stuff and just shoot the breeze. It was pretty great, and in a lot of ways better than a bar. The one by me growing up had a big leather couch in front of a fireplace that we liked to sit at, and it was pretty great in the Ohio winters. In the DC area we have a big Ethiopian community. Ethiopians are big into coffee and coffee shops. If you go to a Ethiopian coffee shop, it's still like that. Some of the higher-end coffee shops that have sprung up in the area are also like that. We live by one that we often go to as a family every Saturday morning and get coffee and breakfast and just chat. I have found the chain coffee shops have been taken over more and more by people camping out on laptops. It probably also depends on how much your area has actually coworking spaces. I have also found that if a place offers more of a true cafe menu, you'll find more people talking. If a place can be something where you would realistically get lunch and coffee, it's much more likely to be lively. And for me, I'd rather be in a lively place regardless if I were there for lunch or if I wanted to work on my laptop a bit.

protonimitate 9y ago
Interesting. I guess it must be a product of my age (born in '91). Thanks for the insight.
- irq11 9y ago
  Consider that “Friends” first appeared when you were ~3, and it should be more intuitive. I feel really old...

brandonmenc 9y ago

> I've never seen a cafe a-la 'friends' where people hangout and constantly buy things. I'm becoming an old, so I'll chime in with the others. Before laptops and - maybe more importantly - before cellphones, the coffee shop was the place to hang out and meet up. From 1993-2000, I practically lived in the coffee shop downtown. We had one main shop in a city of about a quarter million. We didn't get a Starbucks until 2001, of you don't count the Barnes and Noble. It was awesome. It was the nerve center of our music and art scene. It was the only place where college kids and lawyers downtown could get a latte. It was the only place where kids who couldn't get into bars yet could hang out, and the people who could go to bars would pregame there with a cup of coffee. There was a lot of cross-pollination. I met every single one of my close friends at the time at that cafe. We would sit there all day long and talk, smoke cigs, play chess, venture out into the park or the rest of the city, then meet back up at the cafe. And it was packed - in the summer, there would easily be a hundred people hanging out in and around this tiny place. We'd spill out onto the sidewalk. It was almost like a daily block party. But back to the whole pre-cellphone pre-laptop thing - absolutely no one was there to work. It was where you went after work, to do your socializing. And without cellphones, it was a rallying point - everyone got out of work or were at their home phones at different times, so if you wanted to meet your friends, you had to hang out at the coffee shop because the odds were high they'd show up there too, uncoordinated. This concept is foreign to anyone in their 20s. The 90s coffee shop culture was real, it was awesome, and for better or worse, it'll never come back. Sometimes this makes me sad, but the upside is that I don't waste half of my day alone hoping to bump into friends. But - so many good memories!

tedmiston 9y ago

It depends on the kind of neighborhood you live in too. You definitely see the hang out type coffee shops more in hipster neighborhoods vs like business districts or suburbs.