Hacker News Reader

Comment by jlokier | Hacker News Reader

There's an ice cream and bagel place in town. In the late evening it's consistently packed with people on their laptops or reading books.

One day I noticed the music was much louder than usual, and asked the staff to turn it down. I figured it was a mistake because it was normally much quieter.

They told me this was the new company policy. To set the music uncomfortably loud to make people leave, after finishing their food or drink.

(Around the same time they also instigated a 30 minute time limit on Wifi if you bought something. Even though I was willing to keep buying, I couldn't get through a new tea every 30 minutes!)

Theory being it's more profitable to make your customers leave and make room for others, than to make a place people want to go to.

I haven't been back. Even with noise-cancelling headphones(∗), and earbuds under the headphones, it was too loud for me. And the wifi policy was really annoying.

Sadly, I've noticed ultra loud music seems to be the policy at a lot of places these days. I find Starbucks and Costa ok - but some of my friends won't go with me because they find the music there too loud as well.

(∗) I wear noise-cancellers at most places now. It probably makes me look unsocial or "hipster", but it's to protect my ears from the loud music just about everywhere insists on playing, and helps me concentrate when I'm working in a café. I enjoy talking with people if they want to.

View on HN

It probably won't be the most popular opinion but I'm siding with the business for this one. I never got people who use cafe bars, delis, etc.. as personal offices. I personally can't get 'in the zone' in such a public place where:

- I need to buy/consume something every X minutes

- have to overhear irrelevant stupid/mundane conversations

- people have a habit of bringing their dogs everywhere now and I'm not even going to get into how disruptive that is

- deal with the passive-aggressiveness of the employees when you spend a couple of hours there

Whenever I work from home and I need a 'public' place in order to separate home and work, I go to the local library for which I pay taxes. It's probably the only place I can walk in, not be expected to buy anything and just enjoy the silence. Other times when the weather is nice I just go the park or on a bench on the public trail and use my phone as a hotspot.

The bagel/coffee/sandwich/donut shops are businesses where people should walk in, buy something, have a date/meeting/chat and then leave. I'm probably a weirdo but again, I never got this working from a coffee shop thing.

> I never got this working from a coffee shop thing.

This is an old tradition.

Cafes, bars, tea houses, etc have served as social hubs and placed to read or work on documents (now computers) for literally thousands of years, everywhere on the planet. There's simply a social need for a space like that, because it's a more efficient usage of space to have people work on a revolving basis in a shared space than everyone have a private space of their own or not be able to work.

It's only with the modern invention of corporate coffee shops that misvalue social fabric that we see the churn happening. (PS -- those corporate stores are wrong about the short term boost from churn improving their long term fortunes, at least from what I've heard from the big ones.)

I also find it interesting you approve of one "office-like" usage -- having a chat or meeting -- but disapprove of another -- working on documents.

That makes sense. Having a meeting is disruptive to everyone else but working on documents does not. It's like an open office, the last thing you want to do is make noise and disturb people trying to get work done (ironically).

Actually the thing which kills this model nowadays is the obscene cost of real estate and the rentier class. Coffee shops simply can't be profitable as workspaces any more.

You still can see coffee spots as social places in developing countries.

But more people need these work spaces as they can't work in the closet like apartments they are sharing with 2-3 other people. You are correct in saying it's because cost of real estate

You are describing Vienna's coffee house culture. You could even have your mail received there. But part of that culture is also to avoid disturbing other guests by being unnecessarily loud.

I could probably do it. But apart from being able to, I think it's pretty entitled to think that buying a piece of food (or something) entitles you to hours in a food place. Where people come to eat. Typically a < 60 minute event (often much, much less).

Well yes, the business has the right to do what it did, of course. Really no way to knock it other than saying "I don't like that kind of store."

However, there are other shops that actively cultivate the kind of culture you mention. Starbucks is probably the most prominent. It's something that Starbucks deliberately promoted since inception.

You seem already aware that it's nice to have a 3rd place besides home and work. But once it's a coffee shop you don't get it?

> But once it's a coffee shop you don't get it?

Exactly. Let me explain an example. I ran into an old friend once close to a Tully's a couple of years back and went in to get some coffee and catch up. Unfortunately there was no place for us to sit down at a table because all the tables were taken by single individuals working on their laptops. One of them was actually in a conf call. So we skipped that and went to have brunch at a full blown restaurant.

Sounds like there's still demand for more coffee shops. Probably why I keep seeing more Starbucks, Peets, Philz, etc. opening all over the place.

Also, assuming you're willing to drive a couple minutes out of your way, there's usually a slightly less busy Starbucks with tables available.

Maybe there's a business opportunity here for either a new kind of chain with a different brand identity... a non-music coffee shop or something. I know a place near UC Davis where it's actually disallowed to be studying there. No laptops on the tables. But it isn't a chain.

Or an opportunity for something between a WeWork and a Starbucks, a Costco of coffee shops, maybe with a membership fee on top of the cost of drinks.

I'm okay with the 30-minute Wi-Fi policy, but the loud music just makes it unpleasant to be in a restaurant even for a short date/meeting/chat. If restaurants really want to make sure customers aren't staying for too long, they should just make it a matter of policy instead of ruining the experience entirely.

Have you never had to work while traveling? The prevalence of internet cafes has been priceless to me over the years. I travel a lot, and having cafes to stop and work at while on the road has allowed me to be a lot more flexible with travel/work arrangements. I find them very valuable.

> - have to overhear irrelevant stupid/mundane conversations

Quite often I get to eavesdrop on interesting conversations. Typically people launching new business ventures of various kinds.

like I said, stupid/mundane conversations

even if you don't relate, other people have different desires and motivations and it's worth trying to understand that (for social harmony at the very least). you seem to want quiet and solitude in public places, but that's just not the norm. rather than distracting, i find cafes ideal places to work, as they have the right amount of low-recognition distraction (unlike home, where things are too quiet and my bed is so inviting).

you also seem to be looking at things negatively. here's an alternate view:

- you don't have to buy something on a timer.

- - get to know the owners/workers, and they'll enjoy your visits, no matter how long. most of the cafes i visit love it when i bring my dog for instance.

- - if a cafe is (nearly) empty, you sitting there provides natural marketing for the cafe in the form of social proof (no one likes being the only person in a business). i usually leave when i notice it getting full so others can enjoy it too, but if it's half empty, i have no qualms staying for a while without the pressure of buying something on a timer.

- stupid conversations are easy to tune out; interesting ones are the hard ones. at the very least, it feeds the superiority complex nicely.

- dogs are bundles of joy and love, and make (most) people happy.

- again, get to know and show interest in the owners/workers and develop rapport with them. they may even give you free stuff.

>dogs are bundles of joy and love, and make (most) people happy.

I'm at the point where I would pay extra for businesses and facilities that didn't allow animals. The service animal law is also being used fraudulently by so many people, I just assume it unless I can see the person is blind.

I'd prefer the opposite, businesses that don't allow children. Why can't every place be a bar and/or strip joint?

Come to Seattle. Dogs freaking everywhere. And an unusually high number of restaurants that don't allow children.

Strip joints with dogs?

I suspect you intended your comment to be along the lines of "different strokes for different folks", but it pretty strongly came across as "you're weird and wrong; here's the correct way to view things".

yes, it wasn't meant to make a claim on rightness or wrongness (although i can understand why it might come across that way), but to make a point about perspectives.

and that point was not so much "different strokes for different folks", but "different strokes for the same folks", as we each embody multiple perspectives and our conscious brain can choose among them (a lesson i keep learning over and over).

Dogs like to roll and play in filth. They shouldn't be around where people are eating.

so do children.

keeping dogs away from human eating areas reduces your chances of disease by a negligible amount. you would be much better off requiring everyone to wash their hands and/or disinfect their phones upon entering.

> keeping dogs away from human eating areas reduces your chances of disease by a negligible amount.

Citation needed

zoonotic transmission (transmission between species) is not seen as serious enough by the CDC to even track it. but for comparative purposes, there are 1-2 deaths from rabies per year in the US (and infection is as likely from rodents as anything). so the burden of proof is on the dog cynics.

in any case, the primary transmission concerns are poop and mucus membrane contact. so again, the main thing you need to do is wash your hands with soap (and don't play with poop or make out with the dog).

Apart from the need to buy something every X minutes, those problems are also problems in the modern office. And instead of buying something every X minutes, you have a colleague interrupt you every X minutes for some banal thing that's quite possibly not even related to the work you're doing.

It's funny how obvious some people make it that they don't want business. I don't really care about power plugs or wifi when I visit a café (my battery running out is a great motivator + natural time limit, I can tether to my phone for internet) but I always pay close attention to how a new café is outfitted.

Some cafés that genuinely want your business make plugs available to the customers, some will even go as far as to put in plugs with USB adapters as well because they are making it clear: I want you to be here. Other places have no special extra plugs (just what you'd expect for a room that size) and that's fine, but some places have intentionally NO plugs and that's not an accident, that's by design.

Same thing with the wifi policy. I don't care if you have wifi, or don't have wifi, but if you aggressively block ~50% of all sites, seemingly at random, or have a time limit on usage…the message it clear, you only have Wifi so you can say "we have wifi" but you don't really mean it.

I only hope to patronize places that are welcoming, even if I'm not relying on those facilities that day. Those are the kinds of places I want to stay in business.

The kinds of places with limited internet and no plugs are the kinds of places that I don't want to be in business tomorrow, so I had better make sure not to give them a penny today.

In Palo Alto, there’s a cafe (more or less) call Hana House that has three big sections. One of those sections is very comfy, quiet, has proper acoustic design, lots of outlets, and, gasp charges for time.

It’s actually a fairly nice model. If you want to work in someone’s commercial space, paying for it is entirely reasonable.

Strikes me as a sensible business model if you can actually cover the recurring costs by getting enough people in. UK version...

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2014/jan/08/pay-per-minut...

London: https://london.ziferblat.net/

Manchester: https://www.ziferblat.co.uk/

8p/min = £4.80 per hour. Bearing in mind I'd pay £5 for coffee and a cake in many places that seems reasonable.

UK: many public access spaces have places to sit and public wifi (e.g. central reference library, University buildings, some City Council buildings &c)

In Taiwan, there are some excellent tea houses that have an unusual billing model. You can drink their tea for the list price, or you can bring your own tea leaves but use their water, etc by paying for time.

These are not generally the kind of places where you would bring a laptop.

I try to make it profitable if I'm staying longer. If I stay for a long time, I will 'renew' my lease by buying more drinks or snacks :D Places that are friendly and welcoming today…I've gotta make it PROFITABLE for them to stay in business if I want them to be around tomorrow…

Is that the one owned by SAP?

HanaHaus is a deliberate coworking place-café combination: http://www.hanahaus.com/about/

They do want business, just not the kind that people who sit and stay bring. When you’re trying to improve your sales velocity, keeping existing customers moving so as not to dissuade new ones from coming in makes sense.

How does an empty café with bored looking staff invite new customers in?

When I go into frequently-empty places I find that the staff, who should have all the time in the world to help, are actually more distant, because they're so used to filling up their time chatting together or doing other stuff that when a customer actually does show up it's like some unforeseen situation they didn't plan for.

I would blame the staff themselves for that attitude, not the lack of people sitting around and typing and eavesdropping on each other.

"Not full" is not identical to empty. Busy, but not totally full, is the best of all worlds to the proprietor.

So going from 0 people, to 1 person (me) should help them out :D

John Lawrence Aspden on eating-place pathology:

http://johnlawrenceaspden.blogspot.com/2018/09/do-right-thin...

Agreed. The same can be applied to firms that bid on contracts. The firm who makes the most outlandish promises win. If you want to be honest, it is hard to compete, because your competitors won't be.

I think this is a very uncharitable view of the situation. Some coffee shops don't want to pivot into coworking spaces and that's okay. Personally I think it's a match made in heaven since a day pass at a nice coworking space is around $10 which is like two drinks but I get that some businesses would prefer to just sell coffee.

$10 per day seems a low price to me. I have no experience of co-working spaces but I'm thinking of the costs of running a room with say 20 working spaces in it at the usual rent/rates/utilities...

And usually coffee shops are in spaces with higher rents than co-working spaces (retail level costs more, and restaurants have a higher startup cost).

Some places are more explicit. There's a "no laptops" café movement now.

One where I live has a "no laptops at mealtimes" sign. If you get out a laptop, they ask you to leave. If you come during a quiet period, get out a laptop, and are still using it when reaches a mealtime, they ask you to put it away.

To be fair they do really good food, it's always packed at mealtimes, and they explain their policy is because they want to make a place where people appreciate food and conversation.

I like them and wouldn't want them to shut down.

Another place doesn't have a sign. I sat down and ordered a proper meal. Then I got my laptop out. I needed to work for the next couple of hours. Table space wasn't a problem, and it wasn't an especially posh place.

After I'd been working for 20 minutes, a waiter came over to tell me I'd have to put the laptop away. After a rather awkward conversation we agreed I could cancel my already ordered (and presumably partly cooked) meal, because I'd have to go and find another restaurant.

I won't mind so much if that one is replaced.

There are a couple of restaurants around here that have a "no phones" policy.

I applaud it.

If by "business" you mean buying a coffee in exchange of several hours of free internet, electricity and real estate, then it is sort of understandable why many places don't encourage this kind of "business".

Some places do, and you have all the reasons in the world to favor these places as they match your needs, but it seems kind of silly expecting that every place should cater to every type of customer.

This seems very harsh. These places need internet anyway, need electricity anyway (the lights will be on either way.) And need real estate anyway. What is your point?

Coffee shops will never have enough seating anyway for the amount of coffee they sell.

It's unfortunate that people waste so much energy being plugged in when they don't need to be

I'll pay for it. Sounds like a win/win unless you hate money.

But who wants to spend any time or money at all in a café that's designed to be hostile to customers?

It's not fair to say they "don't want business". They don't want certain forms of business — laptop coworkers — that in many cases are both low-profit customers and actively limit the throughput of total customers.

I had a good chat once with a guy who runs a small coffee roastery and number of fancy third-wave coffee shops in a posh university town. One of the most popular coffee shops in town went completely bankrupt and he ended up taking it over. The first thing he did was turn off the WiFi; to hear him tell it, revenue doubled or tripled overnight as soon as he did. Turns out actually having available seats can drive sales, and having a giant store in a high-rent area full of people who buy one $4 coffee and sit there for five hours isn't profitable. At the time, he was in the process of renovating half of the space to be formal paid coworking.

(I personally think there's room for middle ground. My favorite local coffee shop only allows laptops in a dedicated section, which has ample power but also higher-density seating than the normal area. When it's warm enough to sit outside, they allow laptops outside during the week but not on weekends. Another favorite coffee shop just turns the WiFi off on weekends.)

The closest café to me is a 'concept café' being run by a local coffee roaster. I'll often go <2 hours before close and grab a coffee, tip well, and sit until close. Some days if I wasn't there it would be empty, so I'm pretty sure having my body in the café brings more people through the door.

The problem with that café is their hours miss both the before-work rush, and the after-work rush, with them closing shop at 6pm. You have to be _open_ to take money.

The problem is being open costs money. In order to be profitable, you need to bring in more money than the cost of the labor, and that's after you account for cost of the product and the other fixed costs.

There is also the trouble that most of the people who will be around at close of business likely came in an hour or two earlier, so you are essentially paying someone to monitor the cafe without bringing in any new revenue.

I would think the morning before-work rush would be the best time to capture money as a coffee shop, same with the after work time. They are basically only open while working people are away from the neighbourhood and have their doors shut when the biggest rushes of people would be there.

And it's not just them, I see a lot of local businesses in this area struggling, but the problem is they aren't open to take my money at reasonable times. There's another café even closer to me that is trying to make it, but they are closed 2 days a week and it's not the weekend, I'm not sure which days they are, so it's hard to check it out. It's just baffling to me - you pay rent 24/7, you have bills every month, and staff … but if you want to take money (generate income) you have to be open. If you want to make the most money, shouldn't you try to have your doors open the most amount of time you can?

The coffee shop closest to my house has the same problem. The only times they are open are while I'm at work. They opened right about the time we moved (a little over a year ago), and we were excited to have a play we could go close by. But they are never open when it would be convenient for us.

The dumbest thing in my mind is that they are open for like 4 hours on Saturday (7am - 11am).

I think the problem with that particular coffee shop though is that they lady who owns it also runs a catering / event hosting business, so the needs of the coffee shop come last.

I just spent a month in continental Europe, and the cafes and restaurants there are very different than in the US. In the US, restaurants want you to leave ASAP so they can turn the tables quickly. In Europe, they're perfectly happy to let you linger all day. I even became annoyed that nobody in a European restaurant would ever bring me the check. (Finally I learned to just get up and go to the register; this seemed a perfectly fine solution.)

Another commenter here said this was because US servers depended on tips, while tipping is not done in European restaurants. Maybe so; overall I like the European method much better.

Does wearing noise-cancelling headphones actually protect your ears? My understanding of noise-cancelling(at least the active kind) is that it would play the noise you would normally hear but in a mirrored fashion to dampen out the noise you'd hear.

I'm just wondering if that would protect your ears, do as much harm, or double it.

Noise is noise, and if you cancel it out it's gone. Sound waves obey the superposition principle, which means that if I take 1 psi and superimpose -1 psi, I get 1-1=0 psi.

That's true, of course. But it's much harder to actively cancel higher frequencies. This is why noise cancelling works brilliantly on an airplane (relatively low frequency background noise) but it does almost nothing to filter out the sounds of conversations around you.

I always thought it was because noise cancelling can only block repeated waves (like the sound of an engine whirring) but conversation is constant changing sound so it can’t be blocked.

Much easier to match pace with a wave with long wavelength than one with short

Yes, but the question was essentially, "does the sound it cancels out and you don't hear still hurt you". If you still hear it, you're answering something else.

High frequencies are passively attenuated by the foam inside the earcups. It's the mid frequencies (speech, etc.) that survive both active and passive noise cancellation. Still, a high end pair of ANC headphones does a good job on speech/tv if you have some soft music playing through them.

I don't know if it truly protects them from damage overall. That would take science. See "complicated" below :)

But the basic answer to your question is, no, it doesn't double the sound energy.

To the extent the headphones are successful at creating an inverse sound to cancel incoming sound, that will reduce the sound energy reaching the inner ears. The sound and its "mirror" don't add up to increase energy, rather, the energy reaching the ears is reduced where waves cancel.

(The same thing happens in, say, optical interference patterns, and coastal waves. All the energy which seems to mysteriously disappear where waves cancel is, in fact, accounted for by increasing at the places the same waves interfere contructively. In the case of headphones, it's going to be rather more subtly accounted for either elsewhere in the spatial pattern around and on the speaker, and/or by the speaker acting as a net energy absorber.)

Active noise-cancellers also have a passive component. The big squishy cups on mine (Bose QC-35). These of course reduce incoming sound energy too.

But it's more complicated than that. Ears have a sort of physical volume control of their own (using tiny muscles), which reacts to the sound level. As far as I'm aware, damage is more likely deeper in the ear, past that stage.

So anything which alters the ear's coarse volume response might produce a more complicated damage response than simply measuring incoming levels would suggest.

I apply that theory: I sometimes listen to music on the headphones, in high volume environments. This seems to mask out the environmental noise better, and my theory is this isn't just psychoacoustic masking, it's causing my ears to block out more sound physically, helping to protect them physically. When doing this I listen to music which has a consistent sound level, rather than, say, a podcast or something subtle like classical.

I've read that noise-cancellers produce a hiss which annoys some people. I can't say I've noticed much volume to the hiss, and I used to assume it was residual signal from the signal processing. But it may be that's intended to interact with the ear muscles too.

won't that depend on how well synced the waves are? if you get the wrong phase, you're doubling the amplitude

If you get the wrong phase, you can hear it - it's louder.

So, if it's quieter, you're ok.

If the device makes the outside world louder, then yes, you might want to turn it off. (This actually happens on my headphones when taking a call.)

A good fraction of noise canceling for some over-ear headphones is the cups that go over your ear. Having that barrier can be a significant sound damper on its own.

Also, whatshisface is exactly correct.

In addition to canceling sound, the headphones actually block a lot of it to begin with, so they only have to cancel what's left. On the gun range, it's pretty popular to use quite the opposite of noise canceling headphones. They actually amplify sounds at normal human speech levels, then cut off anything above a certain amount. They make no attempt to cancel the gunshot sounds, they just don't reply them inside the headphones. And the blockage from just the physical headphones is enough to turn a deafening gunshot into something fairly comfortable to listen to for quite a long time.

I remember growing up not wanting to go out to eat with my parents. They liked this certain cafeteria style restaurant where you'd grab a tray and slide it along picking out your dishes and paying at the end. I hated that place not because of the food, I could always find something to eat, but because it was so quiet I could hear the people around me eating. It was so disgusting.

You can still find places where you can be served a beverage of your choice in a comfortable chair and tranquil setting. They just tend to have membership fees.

I'm curious what places you're talking about.

Not sure if it's exactly what the parent meant, but, at Workshop Cafe in SF, you just pay to use a seat per hour and otherwise don't have to buy anything, so there's no incentive to get you out the door and free up the spot.

In the UK, private membership clubs are a thing. I'd assume it's not just a UK thing, but I have a friend that is a member at one just to have a place to get out of the house and have a quiet place to go work. Cheaper than renting an actual office, and he doesn't need it everyday. For people that do not work from home, it is quite shocking when you realize how not-quite home can be. Primarily if you have family. Other family members "forget" you're actually working, and have no problem interrupting. Not to say in an office co-workers have no problem interrupting either, but that's a different conversation.

the traditional country club, or other snooty members only organization, perhaps golf clubs in the U.S.

Why are you using an ice cream and bagel place as a library or home?

TBH your question strikes me as having a trolling tone. But I'll answer in good faith anyway. I'm pretty sure most people here understand why people like going to communal places to sit, enjoy snacks and drinks, and read or work quietly.

The question is, why is everyone else using it as a library with snacks. As I said, it's always packed in the late evenings.

The neighbouring coffee shops are also packed until midnight.

Here are some ideas:

- Why not, it's nice to do.

- Some of us are happy to pay for it.

- Lots of people want an evening place, aka "third space", but don't care for bars, alcohol and shouting. They want to quietly sit and read late at night, socially around other people, with some talking some of the time, but not constantly.

- For many, home is not suitable for working, studying or relaxing. It depends a lot on the home.

- It helps to be around other people to focus and relax, and it's nice to have an ice cream and/or bagel and/or drink while doing it.

- There's no library nearby.

- There's a great library further away, but it's shut in the evenings. (Our libraries are often packed with people. Until they close, then everyone has to find somewhere else.)

- If you enjoy reading/writing around strangers being a bit fun and lively, you won't get that in a library. But a bar is too much. Maybe it doesn't work for you, but for me and many others, the buzz from people just being happy in the vicinity is quite helpful.

- No affordable co-working spaces. The few co-working spaces are either rent-per-month (too expensive if you don't use them a lot), or closed in the evening to daily renters. Anyway, the day rate (~$20/day) is too much if you're only out for a couple of hours, and don't have good money (most people I see around are not working in IT, btw).

- Not enough friendly communal spaces. (Btw, I've helped run one of these. It was really hard work!)

Pret is really obviously doing the loud music thing too (and has for a couple of years at least). They lost my patronage. Not that they care: I think they had very good financials before their sale to Krispy Kreme.

[aside rant] We have a very strange cafe culture in the UK compared to continental Europe: too many chains, too expensive, poor quality, takeaway coffee. The latest insult is chains not wanting to wash cups, so now we have to bring in re-usable cups. At least they're offering discounts, for now.

I mean, if you are bringing your own cup, just make your own coffee.

They require you bring a cup? Otherwise you just get a paper one or ...?

Heh, I was referring to separate things and connected them in a tin-foil-hat way: the quite recent campaign against paper cups which encourages people to buy re-usable travel mugs and my experience with various chains serving paper cups even when sitting in (possibly fazing out normal cups). As in we're being guilted in to not accepting paper cups and instead bringing re-usable mugs.

Ah. Yes, paper cups for sit-down visitors is annoying.

Here in Germany some places even give out reusable cups with deposit for to go (as an alternative to paper if you forgot your own travel mug)

Sounds like there'd be a good market for places that charge you for the time you spend in them rather than for the merchandise. Maybe just a bunch of desks and someone walking around with coffee/tea and snacks (free or cheap). Charge, say, $10/hour.

Ziferblat [1] does this for £4.80 an hour, with a four hour cap so you never pay more than £19.20 per day.

I've not found the environment very conducive to getting much work done though. It's too noisy and there aren't enough desks. I've had more success with the Department of Coffee and Social Affairs [2] which charges in the same way as a coffee shop but feels more like a co-working space.

1. https://www.ziferblat.co.uk/

2. https://www.departmentofcoffee.com/

Operating a restaurant is expensive. Rent is by the square foot, so you taking up a certain amount of space with your 1 tea per hour (max 2 teas?) won't pay their bills.

I managed restaurants for a few years. One consistent mistake that I saw, was that restaurant owners would rent more space than they needed. I think the owners over-estimated how popular things were going to be.

Because of this, one of the easiest ways to improve your odds of success, when you own a restaurant, is to lease LESS space than you need. Basically there's a lot of good reasons to make your customers wait in line:

1) You're not paying to rent the sidewalk in front of your restaurant

2) Having a few customers waiting out front is a great advertisement for your place.

Obviously, this isn't great for customers, but if you're a restaurateur it's awesome.

Out in Vegas, restaurants and clubs routinely pay people to wait out front to make their place seem "in-demand."

Absolutely. At the end of the day, you need to maximize dollars per square foot (or seat). Better to do 3 turns of 25 covers than to do 1 turn of 75 covers.

The architectural design of making chairs uncomfortable so people don’t stay in your restaurant for long has been a neat niche of mainstream fast food chains for a while.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com