Most of these posts have been from polite, courteous people. You guys are not the problem. I own a coffee house with free wifi, great drinks and what people tell me is great ambience and long hours. The problem has not been people plugging in; it has been people hogging the outlets. Here is a common scenario. Someone comes in, spends $1.40 on a cup of tea (I only do loose leaf here), then sits down in the best seat for 6 hours without buying anything else. We will have to turn away other people because this person won't budge. These people will even unplug lamps to plug their devices in.
I won't go into the details of costs, but suffice it to say that once you figure in the cost of the electricity (which is about 2x residential rates by the way), I lose money on this person before figuring in labor and overhead costs. Then there is the opportunity cost that is lost, too. Don't tell me to just raise my prices -- I couldn't raise my prices enough to make much of a difference here. I could raise my margins by lowering the quality of my products, but I am loathe to do that. Plus, one of my biggest competitive differences is my product quality.
So, I am more than open to solutions for this problem. I am increasing the seating density a bit to help reduce the impact of people like this. I grew up in Texas and I set up things so that you have elbow room -- a real rarity here in San Francisco. I've thought of expiring WIFI access after two hours, but that's going to require some software that I don't have. I can't think of a low-touch way to require minimum periodic purchases. It has to be low-touch because I only hire very nice, accomodating people and asking them to be time police is not going to work.
An interesting detail is that this problem only occurs when student traffic is heavy. Yeah, I understand that maybe students can't afford to be courteous, but I can't have 40% of my business hours be unprofitable. I am barely breaking even as it is.
I am not complaining. It is a pleasure to be your own boss and finding solutions to problems like this is really enjoyable. However, the attitude that "it's a cost of business, deal with it" is arrogant and condescending. In San Francisco, everything costs more for businesses -- taxes, insurance, permits, electricity, water, sewage, etc. Heck, taxes and insurance for my employees results in a surcharge of close to 25% of wages. That's not including what they pay. There are so many costs that are mandated or that you exert no control over (like a 35% increase in unemployment taxes), that you try your hardest to squeeze every tenth of a penny from anything you can.
BTW, my place is called Pearls and is in San Francisco. And you can plug in.
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Most of these posts have been from polite, courteous people. You guys are not the problem. I own a coffee house with free wifi, great drinks and what people tell me is great ambience and long hours. The problem has not been people plugging in; it has been people hogging the outlets. Here is a common scenario. Someone comes in, spends $1.40 on a cup of tea (I only do loose leaf here), then sits down in the best seat for 6 hours without buying anything else. We will have to turn away other people because this person won't budge. These people will even unplug lamps to plug their devices in.
I won't go into the details of costs, but suffice it to say that once you figure in the cost of the electricity (which is about 2x residential rates by the way), I lose money on this person before figuring in labor and overhead costs. Then there is the opportunity cost that is lost, too. Don't tell me to just raise my prices -- I couldn't raise my prices enough to make much of a difference here. I could raise my margins by lowering the quality of my products, but I am loathe to do that. Plus, one of my biggest competitive differences is my product quality.
So, I am more than open to solutions for this problem. I am increasing the seating density a bit to help reduce the impact of people like this. I grew up in Texas and I set up things so that you have elbow room -- a real rarity here in San Francisco. I've thought of expiring WIFI access after two hours, but that's going to require some software that I don't have. I can't think of a low-touch way to require minimum periodic purchases. It has to be low-touch because I only hire very nice, accomodating people and asking them to be time police is not going to work.
An interesting detail is that this problem only occurs when student traffic is heavy. Yeah, I understand that maybe students can't afford to be courteous, but I can't have 40% of my business hours be unprofitable. I am barely breaking even as it is.
I am not complaining. It is a pleasure to be your own boss and finding solutions to problems like this is really enjoyable. However, the attitude that "it's a cost of business, deal with it" is arrogant and condescending. In San Francisco, everything costs more for businesses -- taxes, insurance, permits, electricity, water, sewage, etc. Heck, taxes and insurance for my employees results in a surcharge of close to 25% of wages. That's not including what they pay. There are so many costs that are mandated or that you exert no control over (like a 35% increase in unemployment taxes), that you try your hardest to squeeze every tenth of a penny from anything you can.
BTW, my place is called Pearls and is in San Francisco. And you can plug in.