So being the yuppie-nerd-coder I am, I spend a lot of my day hanging out in a coffee shop writing code. I had always frequented a coffee shop near by my house in the Mission-Elbow Park area called the purple perk. Now the coffee at this place isn’t the greatest, but I drink black coffee straight up so it doesn’t much bother me. They have great food, friendly baristas, and a generally pleasant atmosphere, but most importantly they have free internet to patrons. 

Recently the owner has decided to turn off the internet between the hours of 11:00  and 3:00 pm, which of course is his prerogative, it is after all his store. However upon inquiring about the reason for there being no internet I was treated with distain. What follows is a brief synopsis of our conversation.

Joe: Excuse me, I am just wondering if you guys aren’t doing internet anymore ?

Owner: Yeah, we don’t do it from 11:00 to 3:00 pm any more, because we don’t want guys like you hanging around drinking coffee and water all day, taking up seats.

Joe: Ok, but I don’t just sit here and drink coffee and water, I have lunch here and spend 15-20 bucks a day. You are going to lose my business.

Owner: I don’t care, I’d rather you not be here anyway.

Now by contrast, just by having a starbucks card (there are purple perk cards too) I get 2 hours of internet every day. I get free refill on the drip coffee (which as I said before is better than the perk’s, albeit not the greatest either). And I get treated as a valued customer by all the employees, and never asked to leave regardless of how much or little money I spend.

So in the end I suppose I am just trading off the atmosphere for being allowed to chill.

I understand the owner’s position, he doesn’t have the resources that starbucks does so he can’t have people not spending money taking up space, but at the same rate, will he start kicking people out who read a book with a cup coffee? Or what about two people who come for coffee and have a 3 hour conversation, are they also not welcome?

In general I really like supporting a guy with a face, and not a giant multinational corporation… but in this case the owner of the Purple Perk on 4th seems to be the one bent on profit at the expense of his customers, and he has therefore left me no choice but to go for the big guy.

.joe out.