Save My Cafes

As someone that works from cafes a lot, I am lucky to live where we have a lot of cafes that are laptop friendly - meaning they don't mind you sitting there all day with your computer even if you only buy one cup of coffee. The truth is that many of us don't only buy more than one cup, we buy multiple. We buy the outrageously priced lunch and even breakfast sometimes if we're in early enough. We're the backbone of their business since we also keep coming back. We're also quite friendly with the staff and they don't have to work too hard to please us. We're also much less likely to make trouble :) We love our cafes, and our cafes love us.

You can imagine my dismay then when I arrived at one of my favourite work spots and the cafe had closed. Forever. They gave no prior warning (to us at least). I hope the staff got some warning since they'd have needed time to seek other employment. No idea why they closed since they were quite busy always. It wasn't the money. I guess I'll never know.

In fact, they were the third cafe to close down in my neighbourhood this year. Even though another cafe did open, they are not laptop friendly at all! This vastly reduces my options and it's quite sad. The one I'm working from today isn't doing that great either. While they may not close, there are rumours that they're looking for "new management". They might sell out to a Tesco or McDonalds or something. In which case they will become something entirely different. Unless Tesco Cafe is a thing, or McCafe decides to spinoff, as I actually think they should, then this coffee shop will likely become some kind of Tesco Express or something that generic.

We have a couple of very small cafes that are family run, but only one of those is laptop friendly. The others just don't have the space for that and have no electricity outlets. Not really viable for a full day's work. Maybe I just have to get used to working from home a lot more now, but I find that I'm more productive in cafes since I don't have the mental distractions I have at home. When I'm home, I am constantly getting up to do other things around the house that need to be done. In the cafe I take that possibility away and hence am more able to focus.

If this gets bad enough, I may have to change neighbourhoods haha. Maybe move to Shoreditch which is pretty much cafe town.

Peace & Love,

Adé