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Although the author barely touched on it, I used to have a friend who owned a coffee shop and told that there's always an interesting push-pull. People like a c

Although the author barely touched on it, I used to have a friend who owned a coffee shop and told that there's always an interesting push-pull. People like a coffee shop for two reasons: Great atmosphere (most important), and great coffee. Great atmosphere encourages people to linger on that $5 ticket for hours, which is a black hole for money, but if your atmosphere sucks you'll never get the buzz and reputation to keep the long lines of to-go in the mornings that you need to survive. Great coffee is hard to find, and requires competent baristas, which are a hard to find/train outside of big cities. I'm a huge coffee shop nut, but from a business perspective it seems crazy. As an interesting aside, another slate article noted once that indie coffee shops that have a starbucks open nearby actually do _better_ afterwards on average.

patio11 16y ago
I think location is likely to be more important than either. My possible bias is that my father works in real estate and he thinks Starbucks shares the crown with Wallgreens as being to real estate siting what Wikipedia is to SEO. I have about five coffee shops I frequent in my small town. The best location in town is in the station, and it is physically impossible for them to avoid selling $1k every weekday morning. The best coffee was at my favorite Sunday hangout and they were about as easy to get to as Customer Service at Google. Three coffee shops have thought they could make that location work.
- jamesbritt 16y ago
  " ... and they were about as easy to get to as Customer Service at Google." :) Thank you for that.
- kngspook 16y ago
  "...as easy to get to as Customer Service at Google." I love that analogy. =) (And I've tried to get to Google Customer Support before on a couple of occasions too.)
thaumaturgy 16y ago
> Great atmosphere encourages people to linger on that $5 ticket for hours, which is a black hole for money... This is a problem that restaurants and other places solved a long time ago. I don't get why coffee shops never seem to do this: train your staff to make the rounds when they're not busy. Stop by any table with an empty cup, pick it up quietly, smile, gently ask the customer if they'd like anything else. (Don't nag or harangue the customer or ask the same one more than once an hour.) Coffee shops have a problem with customers coming in and making themselves at home because they aren't being run like a business: there's very little staff-customer interaction. People come in, order (maybe), find a corner, and park there on the wifi for two hours. Shops respond to this by making customers come up to the counter to get a wep key, but that's the wrong way to do it. Instead, invite people in, invite them to stay, and ask them once in a while if you can bring them anything. And as an added bonus, your staff will make a little extra in tips, too.
- nopassrecover 16y ago
  You make sense, but the attraction at staying in a coffee shop for me (and often paying the inflated prices) is in treating it like a library. In any business if a salesperson comes past more than once asking if I've found what I want yet I'm pretty tempted to leave. That's probably the desired result here but I'd pretty quickly find an alternate coffee shop that didn't bug me at all.
  - thaumaturgy 16y ago
    Yeah, that's the least desirable of the outcomes, but it's still not a bad deal for the business. You have to figure that there will be some customers that want to be able to come in and basically rent space (plus, usually, a restroom and wifi) from the business for a couple of hours for the price of a cup of coffee. Although there's nothing really wrong with a customer wanting that, it's not a good deal for the business and they have no motivation to support it. That's why the interaction from the wait staff should be really low-key. If the customer really isn't OK with being offered something once an hour or so, then that's just not a good customer for the shop. (My local co-working space charges $20 per day for anyone looking for a place to work; I use that as a yardstick for what's reasonable at a coffee shop. If I'm going to be there for more than a couple of hours, then I'm treating it as a co-working space and I owe them $20 of revenue.) Most other people find it fair and convenient to get another cup of coffee or other treat delivered to them, and regard it as good service. I suppose that if the shop thinks there are a large enough number of people in their area that are just looking for a place to work, and are willing to pay for it, but just don't want to be bothered at all, then they could offer something like a "day pass" -- $10 for camping out for more than a couple of hours without being interrupted by the staff, plus a discount on their coffee or other products. But I'm not sure that would have enough takers to be worth it.

patio11 16y ago

I think location is likely to be more important than either. My possible bias is that my father works in real estate and he thinks Starbucks shares the crown with Wallgreens as being to real estate siting what Wikipedia is to SEO. I have about five coffee shops I frequent in my small town. The best location in town is in the station, and it is physically impossible for them to avoid selling $1k every weekday morning. The best coffee was at my favorite Sunday hangout and they were about as easy to get to as Customer Service at Google. Three coffee shops have thought they could make that location work.

jamesbritt 16y ago
" ... and they were about as easy to get to as Customer Service at Google." :) Thank you for that.
kngspook 16y ago
"...as easy to get to as Customer Service at Google." I love that analogy. =) (And I've tried to get to Google Customer Support before on a couple of occasions too.)

thaumaturgy 16y ago

> Great atmosphere encourages people to linger on that $5 ticket for hours, which is a black hole for money... This is a problem that restaurants and other places solved a long time ago. I don't get why coffee shops never seem to do this: train your staff to make the rounds when they're not busy. Stop by any table with an empty cup, pick it up quietly, smile, gently ask the customer if they'd like anything else. (Don't nag or harangue the customer or ask the same one more than once an hour.) Coffee shops have a problem with customers coming in and making themselves at home because they aren't being run like a business: there's very little staff-customer interaction. People come in, order (maybe), find a corner, and park there on the wifi for two hours. Shops respond to this by making customers come up to the counter to get a wep key, but that's the wrong way to do it. Instead, invite people in, invite them to stay, and ask them once in a while if you can bring them anything. And as an added bonus, your staff will make a little extra in tips, too.

nopassrecover 16y ago
You make sense, but the attraction at staying in a coffee shop for me (and often paying the inflated prices) is in treating it like a library. In any business if a salesperson comes past more than once asking if I've found what I want yet I'm pretty tempted to leave. That's probably the desired result here but I'd pretty quickly find an alternate coffee shop that didn't bug me at all.
- thaumaturgy 16y ago
  Yeah, that's the least desirable of the outcomes, but it's still not a bad deal for the business. You have to figure that there will be some customers that want to be able to come in and basically rent space (plus, usually, a restroom and wifi) from the business for a couple of hours for the price of a cup of coffee. Although there's nothing really wrong with a customer wanting that, it's not a good deal for the business and they have no motivation to support it. That's why the interaction from the wait staff should be really low-key. If the customer really isn't OK with being offered something once an hour or so, then that's just not a good customer for the shop. (My local co-working space charges $20 per day for anyone looking for a place to work; I use that as a yardstick for what's reasonable at a coffee shop. If I'm going to be there for more than a couple of hours, then I'm treating it as a co-working space and I owe them $20 of revenue.) Most other people find it fair and convenient to get another cup of coffee or other treat delivered to them, and regard it as good service. I suppose that if the shop thinks there are a large enough number of people in their area that are just looking for a place to work, and are willing to pay for it, but just don't want to be bothered at all, then they could offer something like a "day pass" -- $10 for camping out for more than a couple of hours without being interrupted by the staff, plus a discount on their coffee or other products. But I'm not sure that would have enough takers to be worth it.