3 ms·

Your coffee shop doesn't have: phones, copiers, fax machines, professionally-managed high-bandwidth internet, copious power outlets, comfortable workstations, s

Your coffee shop doesn't have: phones, copiers, fax machines, professionally-managed high-bandwidth internet, copious power outlets, comfortable workstations, secure entry, indoor bike storage, whiteboards, etc. How about we call it a toss-up?

tptacek 16y ago
I have an office with phones, copiers, fax machines, high-bandwidth internet, comfortable workstations, power, secure entry, and whiteboards. We have about 10 people working out of it. I have a very good idea of what these things cost. On the first floor of my building is a coffee shop. It pays more than 3x per rentable square foot than we do. Retail space is priced differently from office space. Attractive retail space is far more expensive than good office space. No, I don't think phones and Internet makes it a toss-up. I think you're way off.
- kscaldef 16y ago
  Well, there's two sides to this: the cost to the business, and the value to the customer. As you say in another response on this thread, if it's unprofitable to the coffeeshop, they should do something to prevent it. OTOH, if I'm working at a table in a mostly empty coffeeshop I'm not affecting their costs at all (except maybe for a small amount of power); their fixed costs are unchanged and the marginal cost of me sitting there is basically zero. (I'm assuming the situation where the cafe isn't full and other customers are discouraged from buying.) Also, FWIW, I've seen enough co-working spaces come and go that I find it hard to believe that they are running a massively profitable business relative to coffeeshops (& retail in general).
  - tptacek 16y ago
    Do we have a shared understanding now that the $/hour cost of a table at a coffee shop is far more than that of a coworking space? I pointed out that the coffee shop: (1) Pays for commercial retail space, which is (in many cases) more than 3x more expensive than commercial office space (which is far more plentiful). (2) Pays for multiple people's fully loaded headcount cost to staff the shop. I didn't point out, but should have, that the shop also: (3) Pays the wholesale price for the coffee (which is cheap but not free) and food (which is extremely expensive) and so has worse margins than the coworking space.
    - kscaldef 16y ago
      I agree that the rent per square foot is higher in a coffeeshop than in a coworking space. OTOH, if I rent a desk at a coworking space, I expect to get 40-70 sq ft of semi-private space. At a coffee shop, I'm liable to be working at a 2-top that's barely large enough to fit both my laptop and my coffee and having the ass-or-crotch debate with my neighbors if I need to get out of my chair for some reason. As for headcount, coworking spaces need to employ office managers. A single barista can serve hundreds of customers in a day. Per customer, a coworking space might actually need more employees.

tptacek 16y ago

I have an office with phones, copiers, fax machines, high-bandwidth internet, comfortable workstations, power, secure entry, and whiteboards. We have about 10 people working out of it. I have a very good idea of what these things cost. On the first floor of my building is a coffee shop. It pays more than 3x per rentable square foot than we do. Retail space is priced differently from office space. Attractive retail space is far more expensive than good office space. No, I don't think phones and Internet makes it a toss-up. I think you're way off.

kscaldef 16y ago
Well, there's two sides to this: the cost to the business, and the value to the customer. As you say in another response on this thread, if it's unprofitable to the coffeeshop, they should do something to prevent it. OTOH, if I'm working at a table in a mostly empty coffeeshop I'm not affecting their costs at all (except maybe for a small amount of power); their fixed costs are unchanged and the marginal cost of me sitting there is basically zero. (I'm assuming the situation where the cafe isn't full and other customers are discouraged from buying.) Also, FWIW, I've seen enough co-working spaces come and go that I find it hard to believe that they are running a massively profitable business relative to coffeeshops (& retail in general).
- tptacek 16y ago
  Do we have a shared understanding now that the $/hour cost of a table at a coffee shop is far more than that of a coworking space? I pointed out that the coffee shop: (1) Pays for commercial retail space, which is (in many cases) more than 3x more expensive than commercial office space (which is far more plentiful). (2) Pays for multiple people's fully loaded headcount cost to staff the shop. I didn't point out, but should have, that the shop also: (3) Pays the wholesale price for the coffee (which is cheap but not free) and food (which is extremely expensive) and so has worse margins than the coworking space.
  - kscaldef 16y ago
    I agree that the rent per square foot is higher in a coffeeshop than in a coworking space. OTOH, if I rent a desk at a coworking space, I expect to get 40-70 sq ft of semi-private space. At a coffee shop, I'm liable to be working at a 2-top that's barely large enough to fit both my laptop and my coffee and having the ass-or-crotch debate with my neighbors if I need to get out of my chair for some reason. As for headcount, coworking spaces need to employ office managers. A single barista can serve hundreds of customers in a day. Per customer, a coworking space might actually need more employees.