Comment by lazerwalker | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lazerwalker | Hacker News Reader

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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.

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