Cafe bans laptops after staff asked to keep noise down during Zoom calls
The owners were also tired of people buying one coffee and staying for hours.
A cafe has brought in a ‘no laptop’ rule after staff were asked to be quiet during customers’ video calls.
The owners of Fringe and Ginge in Canterbury, Kent already felt having so many people working on computers at the coffee shop was ruining the atmosphere.
They were also frustrated with people buying a single coffee then staying for hours.
But the final straw came when customers began asking staff to keep the noise down so they could hear their video call meetings.
Alfie Edwards, who co-owns the business with his partner Olivia Walsh, said: ‘I think what has changed massively is the dynamic and the way that people work.
‘We had some really bad experiences with people, like asking us to turn music off so they could do Zoom meetings, like Teams meetings.
‘We were asked to be quiet, we were making too much noise. Then we just sort of figured out this is not what (a cafe) is about.
‘There are so many places you can go and rent desk space, you can work in the libraries.
‘There are loads of places where they’re dedicated to people working – and they have cafes as well.
‘Here, we just realised we wanted to take hospitality back, have it dedicated to just serving people and letting them have a nice experience.’
The couple opened the cafe in July 2020, not long after the first Covid-19 lockdown restrictions were lifted.
Many of the people who had been furloughed didn’t return to the office full-time and have since chosen work, at least some of the time, in cafes such as the Fringe and Ginge.
Alfie said the laptop ban has ultimately been a success.
‘It’s just so nice to have people who were previously strangers that now chat regularly,’ he explained.
‘To see people connecting, we’ve kind of built a community here. It’s a neighbourhood hangout for a lot of people.
‘We aren’t a big space and we’re social here – that’s a big part of it.
‘It’s just something we had to do, you don’t want to upset people, but it was the right decision.’
Hannah Swann, 28, who manages the nearby Garage Cafe, said she understood why the laptop ban was introduced, but has no plans to implement it herself.
She said: ‘We allow laptops here, most people are nice about it, sometimes people do take advantage of it, but we usually have enough room in this cafe to be able to carry on and not be too bothered about it.
‘I think cafes are a nice place to work really, it’s a nice calm environment. I know a lot of people kind of need stuff going on around them to focus – I know I do.
‘In the space Fringe and Ginge are in, I do understand it, just because if they did allow laptops, they would be filled all day and not have any switch over with customers really.’
In 2017 a music festival banned mobile phones so people would ‘live in the moment’.
Anyone visiting the two-day FLY Open Air Festival had to put their phones in a special case, that was sealed until the end of the gig.
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