The Iron-Clad Rule When Working From A Coffee Shop

Working from your laptop in a coffee shop seems like a great deal: Buy a coffee, and you basically get your own co-working space to inhabit all day long, right? Not quite. If that's your mindset, you're probably breaking the unwritten rules of working at a café.

A key "rule" of working in cafés is that if you're going to stick around, you've gotta order more stuff — this way, you're not just freeloading off the back of a $3 filter coffee. After all, it's a business (and usually not a huge moneymaker at that); coffee shops have bills to pay too. Exactly how often you should buy another coffee or pastry is debatable. Some experts say as often as hourly, while others say less frequently, like every 2 hours. (Buying something every hour seems to be a more common opinion, though.) 

There are gray areas here, though. A big one is whether the coffee shop is busy. If it's jam-packed or the coffee shop has very few tables, you should order more often or consider just staying an hour. Even if you buy another coffee, you're still monopolizing a table and if would-be customers avoid the place because they can't find a table, you're arguably still hurting business. If it's near-empty, it's probably not so heinous if you're not ordering so frequently. Plus, if you spend big when you first arrive (say, a meal and a fancy coffee), you might be able to get away without ordering more for a bit longer.

No matter how much stuff you buy, you probably shouldn't camp out for a full day in a coffee shop. Four hours is probably the point where you should move on. If you really need an office, that's what a coworking space is for.

That brings up another common complaint against the laptop crowd: That they treat coffee shops like their own personal office. Again, even if you're spending big, there's still other unspoken rules of etiquette. Try not to be too obtrusive: This means absolutely putting your devices on silent, as people would probably rather listen to the café's soundtrack than a symphony of Slack notifications. That means it's also not your personal meeting room. You should definitely avoid scheduling meetings so you're taking them in a coffee shop — sure, you'll use headphones, but people speaking with headphones on often don't realize how loud they're being. Another common belief is that you shouldn't take phone calls while working in a coffee shop — there might be ways around this (for example, you could step outside or quickly answer and see if they can call back later), but it's probably something to avoid in general. Overall, just try to be respectful — remember that the people around you might be there to relax and enjoy themselves, not to be subject to the details of your workday.

Obviously, if a café has a "no laptops" sign, that's a no-brainer: Don't work there on your laptop. But many café owners don't love laptop-dwellers, but may not go so far as to have a strict rule. In this case, there might be subtle hints: For example, if a coffee shop doesn't have public Wi-Fi, they probably don't want you working for hours. The same might apply if there are no outlets (although this could be a design quirk). Similarly, if the café bans laptops on weekends or on certain tables, this may be a sign that they don't want to be treated like a co-working space. Consider keeping an eye on the baristas: If they're glaring at you and your laptop, maybe it's time to go.

This is especially relevant if you're a digital nomad or remote worker and hoping to do a little work while traveling someplace outside the United States. Cafe culture varies a lot from country to country, and in some countries, coffee shops are seen as mostly a social space where plopping down with a laptop is odd or frowned upon. This is the case in France. It doesn't mean there aren't laptop-friendly cafés in Paris, but you might have to seek them out more actively. Somewhat similarly in Australia, cafés are closer to restaurants, with full menus, not a place to buy one coffee and crack open your computer — Starbucks-style cafés just aren't popular there.