The Four Unspoken Rules for Working From a Coffee Shop

“Coffee is the common man's gold, and like gold, it brings to every person the feeling of luxury and nobility.” - Author Unknown 


You are pressed for a deadline, and you need to work—even while you are on the road. No problem, you might think, and park yourself at the nearest coffee shop, order a single latte and go to work for hours at a time. No harm and no foul, right? After all, you are a paying customer, so you might as well stay as long as you please. Well, you are not exactly right. Although coffee shops exist in part to provide an alternative work space for employees on the road, students in need of a place of study and free lancers, this does not mean you can fully exploit that to its fullest extent. While true, coffee shops have you as their target customers in mind, they would not want to lose potential profit just because you have a report to finish. You might have gotten a cup of coffee, but in the duration of your stay, the coffee shop could have sold at least a dozen more of those had your space been unoccupied.

One good rule of thumb to remember when it comes to coffee shops is that although coffee is their primary product, the space they offer you also comes at a premium. It would be the height of discourtesy to buy a single product from the menu and park yourself at the largest table for about six hours. You are not only denying the coffee shop profit, but you might be inadvertently causing them to lose their patrons to competitors instead. So, be a little considerate. In any case, here are some unspoken rules to keep in mind when you are working in a coffee shop—whether that may be a cafe in a hotel, or a regular famous coffee shop joint:

1.) Visit during off peak hours

If you intend to spend the majority of the day working on something from the coffee shop, you might want to be a little flexible with your schedule. This means you need to consider going during the off peak hours which could be anywhere in the early morning, after lunch hours or late in the evening. Avoid the rush as much as possible and see to it that the barista is not serving a queue and the shop is relatively vacant.

2.) Order enough stuff

What you order should be directly proportional to how long you intend to stay. Ordering a cup of coffee should give you about a couple of hours max sitting in the coffee shop, but if you plan to stay longer, then you should consider buying more stuff. Furthermore, it is inappropriate to bring your own drink—as you are using the coffee shop's premises, you are expected to buy something from them. If they serve regular hot meals, you might want to eat there as well. Remember, your coffee shop is running a business as well, so help them by buying enough stuff if you are going to be staying longer than most patrons.

3.) Do not take up a table bigger than you need

You might want to spread out and have a little leg room, but in a coffee shop where space is limited, you should refrain from doing so. Park yourself in a table that is big enough only for you and not big enough to accommodate you and your belongings. Try to occupy as little space as possible. Remember that although you can select the table you want (first come, first served basis after all), you might want to limit your impact if you are going to be working there for hours. During peak hours, that table could serve a lot of customers which you deny the coffee shop by parking yourself there.

4.) Clean up after yourself

Your coffee shop is not a restaurant in a sense that you have busboys who would clean up after you. Although baristas would routinely go from table to table to clean up after a customer leaves, they will hardly find the time to do this above ringing customers and making drinks. So, do your part and clean up after yourself, your barista will thank you.

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