Omnivore - New York coffee shops turn on laptop freeloaders
But Starbucks renews vow to leave laptoppers alone
Michael Erickson, marketing director for Fifth Group Restaurants, posted a link on Facebook to an article in the Wall Street Journal about a movement among New York coffee shops to discourage laptop use:
Amid the economic downturn, there are fewer places in New York to plug in computers. As idle workers fill coffee-shop tables — nursing a single cup, if that, and surfing the Web for hours — and as shop owners struggle to stay in business, a decade-old love affair between coffee shops and laptop-wielding customers is fading. In some places, customers just get cold looks, but in a growing number of small coffee shops, firm restrictions on laptop use have been imposed and electric outlets have been locked. The laptop backlash may predate the recession, but the recession clearly has accelerated it.
Erickson wonders if the same problem had anything to do with the closing of Caribou at the corner of Monroe and Piedmont. Actually, a sign on the door says the coffee shop has closed for remodeling. Meanwhile all the laptop users have moved to Ansley Starbucks, where I counted 15 machines a few days ago.