“To the Coffee-house, and there all the house full of the discourse of the great fire,” wrote Samuel Pepys of his trip to a 17th-century cafe – then the social nerve centre of London’s gossiping elite.
Fast forward to the 21st century and the chattering classes have been replaced with the clattering classes – remote workers busily hammering away on their laptop keyboards and shouting on video calls to be heard over the mechanical grinding of coffee beans.
With the post-pandemic boom in working from home colliding with the practical drawbacks of being stuck at home all day, coffee shops have become the remote worker’s retreat, where a desk and a wifi connection can be bought for the price of a flat white.
But some cafe owners are staging a fightback against this incursion of laptop labourers. ‘No laptop’ signs have been springing up in cafe windows across the UK as their owners try to reclaim their spaces in the name of tranquility.
For Ollie Gold, co-owner of Pophams Bakery, which opened its latest site in 2022, restricting laptops in all three branches of the London cafe was initially a business decision to ensure higher turnover that would allow the business to survive.
“I remember those early days so well where I’d want someone on a laptop to sit there for eight hours, but I guess as it got busier, you do start to have to make more business-conscious decisions.
“People would buy a tea that cost three pounds and would sit there all day… you just can’t afford to keep an establishment going like that.”
Before long, Gold felt that laptop screens were encroaching on the community soul of Pophams as well as the profit margin. After an initial ban on weekends, he decided to introduce laptop restrictions across branches during the week. The London Fields branch operates a policy restricting laptops to high tables and windows.
“I’d walk in some days, and there were laptops everywhere and I thought: let’s rewind to why we created this business, to create a community to make people come in and chat, whether with your partner, whether with your family, whether your friends. We don’t want laptops everywhere because it completely changes the energy and atmosphere of a location.”
Chris Chaplin, owner of Milk and Bean in Newbury, was also disappointed when the dream to open a cafe that “felt like home” instead began to feel like running a co-working space.
“We’ve had a few people who will come, work as a group, and then they’ll kind of huddle around one laptop, and brand us as like their office, and I really disagreed with it.”
As a result they decided to restrict laptop use to one hour a day and enforce a total ban on weekends, a compromise they felt was fair given the small size of the cafe. The ban, encouraged by a friendly label in the cafe stating “we would rather the tables were reserved for laughter, flirting and conversation”, has mostly been received well by customers.
Grounded, in Bow, London, which introduced a laptop ban from 11am to 3pm on weekdays, has faced mixed reactions from customers.
“Some people are like: ‘Oh yeah, I’m so sorry, like I didn’t know,’” said Vestina Pranaityte, Grounded’s general manager. But others take issue. “We had a regular who used to come in literally when we open, around half seven, and stayed with her laptop ordering one long black till three o’clock. She wasn’t happy with the laptop policy and unfortunately she left us,” Pranaityte added.
More than a quarter of adults worked part-time from home last autumn, according to the Office for National Statistics. Ed Fisher, a university student and customer at Grounded, says allowing laptops in cafes can benefit younger people who are less likely to have the space at home to work and study.
“Housing in London can be quite cramped. I live in a flat with four blokes … Not everyone’s got a massive place so if people want to get some work done, a cafe is a good spot to come,” he said.
Chains in the UK including Costa, Caffè Nero and Starbucks have yet to join the flurry of independent cafes clamping down on laptop usage, although Starbucks in the US and Canada recently ended its open-door policy that allowed customers to sit in and use facilities without making a purchase.
A representative from Black Sheep Coffee, which has more than 100 branches worldwide, said: “How customers want to spend their time while drinking is totally up to them. We welcome everyone at Black Sheep, with or without a laptop: students and seniors, young professionals and stay-at-home parents. Whether you come alone, with a date, or with your entire family, whether you come to read a book or to have a meeting, we’re here to serve and make you feel welcome.”
