Retro Cafe has no Wi-Fi, no too many sockets, so why go to the cafe?

Birch Cafe, located on 27th Street near Madison Avenue, looks like a typical new cafe: bare brick walls, dark log decorations, Edison-era vintage light bulbs, books neatly stacked on bookshelves. The difference is that you can only see a few laptops in this cafe-on weekdays, Wi-Fi can only be used after 5pm, and the coffee shop doesn't have that many sockets.

So if you can't surf the Internet while drinking a latte, what can you do here? There is a black-and-white writing board next to the cashier of the cafe, where guests can take a small sign and use it as a topic to talk to strangers:

The topics written above include:

Tell me. If your life is a movie, who do you want to make the soundtrack for you?

Ask me... If I were a professional wrestler, what kind of music should I play when I enter the stadium?

Tell me. A life-changing book that I should read.

……

Of course, this kind of chat-up is not popular with everyone (especially those who come up for their first cup of coffee early in the morning and are in a bad mood). People gave half-and-half reviews on review sites such as Yelp and Foursquare. Some people think that this tiresome friendliness is a little weird. "the small chat signs on the coffee table make the atmosphere of the whole cafe very strange," one user wrote. "but their coffee is really delicious!"

With the advent of the network era, people are more and more reluctant to communicate face-to-face. Nowadays, you can rarely see people reading newspapers or books in cafes. On the contrary, there is a sea of screens, with faint blue light projected on customers' faces.

"We believe from the bottom of our heart that cafes were born to provide people with the opportunity to meet and meet strangers. Cafes should be community centers," said Jeremy Leaman, co-founder of Birch Cafe. "when everyone focuses on their laptops, cafes don't play a role. We try to make it easier for people to open up to others in this way. "

These ice-breaking topics are also very effective-Lehman says he has heard that some customers have started dating after talking to each other.

At the same time, these small brands also reflect that Wi-Fi is something that kills thousands of dollars for cafe owners. "all the negative reviews we've received have been complaining that there is no Wi-Fi in the store," Mr. Lehmann said. People complain that the Internet connection is unstable and that there are not enough outlets in the store.

So when Birch Cafe opened a branch on the Upper West side a year and a half ago (at the time they didn't require Wi-Fi to be used only after 5 p.m.), small cards became a way for people to move around and share tables with strangers. "customers can get an hour's free Wi-Fi room as long as they spend," Lehmann explained. "but what we really thought was that if customers were willing to share the table with others, we would give them an extra hour to surf the Internet. At that time, the card said, 'Let's browse the World wide Web cafe together' or 'Let's surf the Internet together'. " The attempt was not very successful, Lehman added, and since then they have restricted the use of Wi-Fi.

How to make people drink more coffee less online? Birch Cafe is not the only one thinking about this.

From Los Angeles to Brooklyn, many cafes have set Wi-Fi time limits to allow computer users to sit in Internet seats, or even cover sockets to prevent consumers from surfing the Internet for long periods of time in cafes, or use cafes as office spaces (known as "caf é" or coffice).

Jodi Whalen, the owner of August First Bakery and Caf é in Burlington, Vermont, has banned the use of all electronic devices. When her store provides wireless broadband, customers will sit in the store all day. "Wireless broadband has lost a lot of revenue from us." She told NPR. For many coffee shop operators, selling coffee doesn't make much money, and most of it comes from meals-so coffee shops can't make money unless customers who use computers order sandwiches every half an hour. Banning laptops in stores has boosted Whalen's income-at the same time, the number of people in the store blankly brushing the screen and playing with social media has greatly reduced.

Of course, birch cafe chat cards are not for everyone. Maybe you just want a cappuccino and don't care about the mental journey of the person who shares the table with you. But it's not that bad to stay away from the electronic screen from time to time.

Source: interface network