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London's first pay-per-minute cafe
- tsmith 13y ago3p/minute = 5 cents US per minute, or $3 per hour? Seems incredible!
- justhw 13y agoWhat is p? certainly not pounds, right?
- Sniperfish 13y agopence
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- jmgrosen 13y agoPence.
- delinka 13y agoAnd maybe include "how many pence to a pound"? My assumption is this is like pennies and the US dollar - 100 pennies to a dollar; therefore 100 pence to a pound?
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- swalsh 13y agoSeems like a fine line. At $3, you don't really expect more than a chair and some autoshop coffee. However once you cross that line where you're paying similar prices to a movie maybe $7 an hour you start to expect more.
- Numberwang 13y ago1 Coffee to go please.
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- acgourley 13y agoWorkshop Cafe in SF does it by the hour, seems to work pretty well. You get 10 hours free to start, it's worth your time to stop by for those hours at least.
- kchung 13y agoWorkshop Cafe is one of my favorite places to work in SF. You don't feel like a cafe squatter since you pay for your seat, and its always nice working around like-minded individuals. Plus there are so many outlets... http://workshopcafe.com/ http://workshopcafe.com/
- tdumitrescu 13y agoI just spent a few hours there. It was pretty much at capacity the whole time. Cool to see it succeeding such a short time after opening. Though for me personally I can't say the environment there's ever been particularly conducive to meeting any of the supposedly like-minded individuals staring at their screens next to you.
- kevinflo 13y agoThey've actually just started adding social features to the app. It's all opt-in, but if you want you can share who you are, what you're working on, and where you're sitting when you check in. You can tell it is really just their first step in encouraging that kind of thing. Such a great place to work.
- jadence 13y agoDeveloper for Workshop Café here. The recently-released social features (Community Page) are definitely just the MVP. Would love to know what you think. We're going to see how people use it and add stuff we think is helpful. We've already noticed people putting their contact info and links to their personal pages, projects, etc. Hope it catches on!
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- michaelt 13y agoAccording to this: http://calvertjournal.com/articles/show/1845/ziferblat-russian-anti-cafe-opens-in-london http://calvertjournal.com/articles/show/1845/ziferblat-russi... it's £1.80 an hour, or £9 to stay as long as you want. A nearby coworking space, Google Campus, is £90 for 30 hours a month with coffee and tea paid for separately. Of course, it would be easy to create an environment that deterred laptop users if that's not compatible with what they're hoping to achieve.
- GigabyteCoin 13y agoWouldn't this cafe eventually be filled with freeloaders who pay 9 pounds per day in order to get gourmet coffee and food all day long? That's a pretty good deal if you're a cheapskate living in london. Sandwhiches can be 9 pounds by themselves.
- sreevishwa 13y agoThat's Quite possible. Or if someone is a real cheapskate, they could come here twice a day (£3.6) for two meals. They have coffee, fruits, veges and a kitchen - what else do you need?
- michaelt 13y agoThe impression I get from [1] is when a reporter visited the food was biscuits, peanut butter, toast and an onion (Apparently customers are invited to bring and cook their own food) £9 would get you four loaves of bread[2] and three jars of peanut butter[3]. You'd have to be pretty hungry to eat enough of that for them to make a loss. I assume the concept is fairly experimental at the moment, presumably they won't want people sprinting in, making an espresso for 3p and running out. Or I might have misunderstood what I read in [1]. In any case, it'll be interesting to see how it shakes out. [1] http://now-here-this.timeout.com/2014/01/08/pay-per-minute-cafe/ http://now-here-this.timeout.com/2014/01/08/pay-per-minute-c... [2] https://www.ocado.com/webshop/product/Wholemeal-Bread-Medium-Sliced-essential-Waitrose/15887011 https://www.ocado.com/webshop/product/Wholemeal-Bread-Medium... [3] https://www.ocado.com/webshop/product/Crunchy-Peanut-Butter-essential-Waitrose/10637011 https://www.ocado.com/webshop/product/Crunchy-Peanut-Butter-...
- dkersten 13y agoI like this idea. Would love to see more things like this.
- gingerlime 13y agosounds brilliant. I always feel guilty/uncomfortable sitting too long, but with this kind of place you never feel guilty. 1.80 per hour and includes everything (coffee?) sounds like a bargain in London standards. That won't buy you a cup of coffee in most other places as far as I remember, let alone fruit, vegetables, biscuits etc... Even cheaper than co-working spaces(?), especially for casual use.
- golergka 13y agoI'm surprised to find out that it's first of it's kind in London. In Moscow these place became quite common in the recent years; it's a great place to chat with friends, or gather big companies. They usually have a selection of available board games and other company-oriented entertainment.
- Xymak1y 13y agoWhile there are comments that mention getting drinks to go, I think 1.80 pounds are extremely cheap for spending time at a place, drinks and snacks included. I'd go.
- eponeponepon 13y agoSo for 15p I can go in, make my own four-or-five shot latte, spill the milk everywhere because I'm hurrying, stuff my mouth full of biscuits, and walk out again? Do they expect profit..? Or is the rest of the service industry just gouging us silly? [edit: typo]
- darklajid 13y agoYeah, and you can go to all-you-can-eat meals and skip eating a day before and after to get the most out of it. I agree that the business might seem risky in quite some ways, but .. exploits like yours are probably possible in a lot of places. I'm reasonably sure that I could go to a good number of hotels, check in for a number of days, have my breakfast/empty the minibar and leave. Going to a cafe and leaving without paying is usually trivial, only social norms stop you from doing that (or .. don't).
- zht 13y agowhere in the world can you find a hotel where you are not charged for what you take from the minibar?
- darklajid 13y agoUhm.. - all hotels that I know of (and I traveled quite a lot. In fact I write this from a hotel in Bern, CH) charge you at the end of your stay. A good number of hotels don't check your ID/your personal information. My point above was to just leave early, with or without clearing the minibar. It's possible and not hard. - I know more than a handful of people that just go to the reception, pay for the room. 'Sir, did you take anything from the minibar?' - 'No'. Of course they did. Now the hotel certainly can (after the guest departed) find out that it was cheated. And now .. what? The guest was probably from another country. Are you going to send a bill and hope for them to pay after lying to you previously? For a beer or three? Turns out .. a lot of hotels don't do that and never reach out to you. (Disclaimer: I haven't done that myself, I'm too cheap to buy the minibar items. My minimbar, at right this moment, is filled with beer I bought at a supermarket and brought to my room. But I _have_ been part of these exploits over and over again, even standing next to people that declined the question of whether they used the minibar and I was in their room! There are usually no consequences. If there are, you can ignore it - or say 'Oh, yeah. My fault' and pay up without repercussions)
- manishsharan 13y agoI really think all coffee shops should start charging people for loitering long after they have finish their coffee. I live in Toronto and I can't remember when was the last time my wife and I were able to enjoy a latte while sitting at a Starbucks or Timothys. Nowadays, it seems all coffee shops are overrun with kids doing their homework or whatever. The worst part is that the laptop/tablet people barely make eye contact with others; they are so engrossed in their screen ! Thankfully,we found a smaller coffee shop which does not offer Wifi and where the owners discourage loitering / homeworks.
- thirdtruck 13y agoI'd gladly pay for guaranteed work-space on an hourly basis and get complimentary coffee, more so than the inverse.
- manishsharan 13y agoCoffee shops like Starbucks or Timothys are were not meant to be a work space . What bugs me is that coffee-shops used to play an important role in the community. Its where you went to dish the dirt, catch up with the neighborhood. It was like a bar for socializing without the alcohol . Now coffee shops are being overrun with laptop/tablet people working remotely seeking a work space. These people occupy spaces fo r long periods shutting out regular coffee-drinkers and without contributing any conversation or even a hello to the community. Any development that lures these people away from my Starbucks is OK in my book. edit : some typos.
- _delirium 13y agoThere are a handful of coffee shops that actively don't want to be used by laptop/tablet users, and one way they signal that is by not offering wifi. It's not quite as effective a deterrent as it used to be with the advent of cheapish mobile data plans that have tethering, but it can give you an indication of what the shop expects its usage to be. Fins Coffee in Santa Cruz, CA is an example of a shop without wifi. Given how heavily Starbucks not only offers but advertises its free Wifi (as does McDonald's), my guess is that they do actually intend their stores to attract laptop/tablet users.
- theorique 13y agoIt sounds a lot like an airline club lounge - free food, drink, wifi, printing, etc.
- damian2000 13y agoOr a new car dealership service waiting area ... at least one I've been to had all this.
- corin_ 13y agoIf all you're looking for in the comparison is "somewhere to sit, a coffee machine, etc." then it matches many things. GP's point with the airport lounge comparison is that it matches not just in objects but in purpose / business model.
- theorique 13y agoWell, yeah. The interesting thing is the pricing model - at the airline club, you prepay for it by either paying per session (very expensive), having a club membership through some means, or else it's baked into the price of a first-class ticket. In the per-minute case, I'm trying to think of how usage patterns would vary from those of an airline club. It would be interesting to compare to other models as well, such as a co-working space that offers free coffee and treats.
- sreevishwa 13y agoIs this financially viable?
- dkuznetsov 13y agoIf it's 3 pounds per minute, it's a bit too expensive. If it's 3 pence per minute, it's probably too cheap.
- woodylondon 13y agoGenius idea! Long thought that about a space you could turn up, surf the web, chill out. If they have set this up as they describe could feel move like your home away from home. Surf the web, grab a drink, make some new friends etc. Going to check it out soon!
- guard-of-terra 13y agoI'm very fond of anticafes as an idea. We usually gather there to play board games or for birthday parties. AMA :) You can drink tea and coffee with cookies or you can bring your own cake or you can order pizza/sushi delivery. We've visited a Ziferblat/Ziferburg in SpB and it's amazing, they're sitting on the top floor of a historic building just opposite Gostinyy Dvor (and near the jealousy-inspiring VK office btw), they even have a piano there.
- gms7777 13y agoClearly the idea has worked in Russia, but I find it hard to see how charging a flat rate can be financially viable. The pricing seems like such a fine line to make it cheap enough for its intended usage (people hanging around and such) but expensive enough to cover the food. As other commenters pointed out already, you could walk in, take a bunch of food and expensive coffee and leave. I think one way of attacking this problem would be similar to taxi-cab pricing (X for the first mile and Y (where Y<<X) for every subseqeunt one. Essentially adding a flat fee of a few bucks just for walking in, then charging a small amount per minute to hang around.
- guard-of-terra 13y agoThey don't offer food (bring your own) just cookies, and you won't realistically chew too many cookies. They also have coffee from coffee machine. The whole idea is to make it feel like home (that many people in the city lack while renting something ugly) - assorted old furniture and a good company.
- United857 13y agoThey seem to use analog clocks that are given to each customer to record time. What's to prevent someone from (literally) turning the clock back?
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- guard-of-terra 13y agoIn Ziferburg SpB, every clock is different and have a name written on it, they look up that name in their log and charge you the difference. So the clock is purely flavour. Other anticafes may just ask for your name and use it as index. These places usually attract people who are cool. So I won't expect much cheating anyway.
- rabz 13y agoCoffee in other places is expensive precisely because the price is a stand-in for table-space and queuing rent. The cafe charges for the opportunity cost of someone peeking in seeing the line too long or the tables too full and running out. Same thing with corkage charges—wine-drinkers longer longer. The person who runs into a place like this, grabs food and a latte, and runs out is not doin them economic harm.
- kushti 13y agoThere are probably more than 10 "anticafes" in Saint-Petersburg(as "Ziferblat" had great success after opening in early 2012). Some of them are profitable, AIK. Ziferblat is the good place for hanging out, but too noisy to work(many students playing table games around). If you want to work, better choices are "3rd place"("tretje mesto"), me4ta.tv(far away from center, but best choice probably if you're staying in northern districts of the city) or even IMarussia. P.S. In Saint-Petersburg's Ziferblat, you can take coffee-to-go for free but donations are highly welcomed.
- appplemac 13y agoKiev's Ziferblat is a really amazing place: it became a real centre for the city's creative youth with a good selection of free international press (doesn't happen much in Ukraine), nice workshops, movie nights and other stuff. Let's see if Londoners can be as open as Ukrainians.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- deet 13y agoThe opposite concept can also work: free work space but no outside food or drink. Next Door in Chicago offers a good work environment (tables, some cubicles and private rooms with excellent internet), and is completely free. Using it for work is encouraged. A cafe inside does very good business from the people who are otherwise there to work (no outside food or drink is allowed) . It's sponsored (by State Farm), so it's possible the cafe might not be able to support the space on it's own, but the fact that an environment where work is explicitly free brings substantial revenue for the cafe suggests that model might be viable.
- acjohnson55 13y agoCapitalOne does a 360 Café idea in many places that's quite similar.
- Evgeniuz 13y agoI live in Mykolayiv, small city in Ukraine and we have similar venue here called "Moloko" (milk in ukrainian). It's not snacks or tea/coffee that matters, it's community and events that happen there. Owners actively encourage socialising, there are events almost every day and it hosts several clubs. In fact I just returned a few hours from Mafia club meeting there. Also, they encourage to host your own events there, for free. I. e. they get paid from visitors and you get venue. You can also take higher price for your event if needed.
- pixelcort 13y agoIn Japan, see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manga_cafe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manga_cafe Paying per minute reminds me of paying per minute for virtual servers.
- patio11 13y agoThe manga cafe is one of my favorite Japanese institutions, though the utility is lower now that I'm married. It's a no-notice dirt-cheap hotel (if you're amenable to sleeping in a recliner), a mid-day nap, an instant office-with-a-door, an instant wifi connection and (typically) open outlet, serviceable liquid refreshments, climate controlled like a business rather than Japanese houses (i.e. always tolerable, which is not a hard-and-fast requirement for Japanese apartments/houses), and virtually guaranteed to be tolerant of people at the margins of society [+]. [+] This can be useful if it is 2 AM and you're in a city you don't live in with a face that says "I am at the margins of Japanese society; nobody will fault your hotel if you refuse my business on the excuse that you are fully booked... on a Thursday... but could be unbooked if I were willing to have someone from my office call to vouch for me."
- lmm 13y agoThe only pay-per-minute cafe I've encountered was a maid cafe in Japan.
- jrockway 13y agoDo the waitstaff dress up like characters from popular manga/anime series? If so, this is nothing new.
- chippy 13y ago"nothing new" For London?
- midas007 13y agoInteresting. Moscow has had these for quite a while. From the owner side, it seems like the way to keep people from buying the cheapest thing and occupying a table. From the consumption side, is seems like another way to squeeze more money out of people and give another reason to exclude people on basis of economics.
- Kiro 13y ago> It's funny to see people queueing here to wash their dishes. It's not obligatory, but it's appreciated. They even wash each other's dishes. It's very social. I don't understand why pay-per-minute would lead to this. Doesn't that mean people are paying to wash other peoples' dishes?
- delinka 13y agoYou forget the English stereotype where everyone is always so nice! More seriously, if they're making the place "feel like home" (limited snack options, coffee-machine dreg rather than barista-prepared fluff, etc), then I suspect it's a feeling of community: let's keep the place nice and clean not just for the owners of the building, but also for us, the ones who 'live' here.
- chippy 13y agoApparently: In Starbucks in the USA, people take their empty mugs and dishes to the counter. In Starbucks in the UK, people don't do that - they consider it the cafe's job to clear the tables.
- antoinec 13y agoThere is the pretty much the same concept in Paris, except that you pay per hour. http://anticafe.fr/en http://anticafe.fr/en They have plugs all over the place and the wifi is much better than in any other cafe, which makes it a really nice place for working.
- kfk 13y agoSo, I run some numbers. First, all back in Euro, the a 20%VAT gives us: 1.73 per hour Considering this place is a cafe and runs only during day starting very early, it can run at 12 hrs day. Let's also take the normal accounting standard of 30days per month. This gives us: Monthly income: 1.73 x 12 x 30 x X Where X is the avg hourly nr of people in the cafe'. Say X is 15 --> Monthly revenue: Eur 9400 Considering 1 waiter at a cost of 4000, rent at a cost of 2000, utilities at a cost of 500, food/coffee at 1000, we have about EUR 2000 of profits for 1 cafe'. Excluding amortizations and other overhead I probably forgot to consider. But I think 15 hourly is a bit optimistic, how big is this place?
- chippy 13y agofrom the article, the image used has more than 15 seats. I counted around 25. Their website has more images: http://london.ziferblat.net/ http://london.ziferblat.net/
- etanazir 13y agosee also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jjimjilbang http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jjimjilbang