AIBU to think that buying a coffee doesn't entitle you to squat in a cafe all afternoon?

[MythicalKings]

Inspired by the "reserving tables" thread.

No problem if it isn't crowded but some groups of people think it's ok to sit for a couple of hours or more in a busy café having only bought one drink each.

Last year in Cornwall I even saw one family sneakily get out a sandwich lunch which they ate furtively.

Last week Dsis and I popped into a cafe for a coffee before embarking on a shopping spree for her newly decorated living room. An hour and a half later we went back for lunch and saw the same group of people at the same table with the same empty coffee cups. It was really busy but they pretended not to notice the hovering people with food laden trays.

It is rude and inconsiderate, isn't it?

So what is the general consensus about reasonable purchases/time? A drink every half an hour, or every hour?

what about pensioners I love?

You know in spain people go out , sit outside linger over a coffee, wave to friends passing by etc...someone stops has a chat?

This is rude in your book?

I don't think it matters how old you are Knitted
If that's the norm all over Spain even in cities and urban areas I'll take your word for it.

I think it depends on the drink OddBoots

I think it's rude to be sitting for extended periods when your drink is finished.

Of course it is I love go to itlay and spain, and southern france, all the elderly sit on benches, in cafes, watching life go by...

maybe you dont care about the elderly, but i do. we are all going to be pensioners one day, and perhaps widowed and lonely and with limited funds.

It is the norm where I live for pensioners to hang around in cafes, usually the cheaper ones.

I think age is a point as there are a lot of lonely / isolated pensioners around if the news and stuff is correct and getting out and about like this can be much more important to them than someone who is in a less isolated situation.

Actually just remembered, I used to work in a bookmaker and we gave free tea and coffee and we had the same group of about 8 pensioners in there all day every day, drinking the drinks. They would arrive at opening, put an accumulator on for horses 5p a race so a bet of about £1.30 or 80p or something, some trivial amount, then drink free drinks all day with their friends and go home when we shut

No-one ever considered chucking them out.

"I think it depends on the drink OddBoots"?

So different drinks have different approved times? Do you mean hot drinks / cold drinks, or is there some other way of calculating?

I think there is a big difference in the time of day in terms of table etiquette. Some people may want to take longer at a slow time of day, quite rightly. At busy times, the etiquette is different.

As a solo diner, on one occasion I was asked to move (very nicely!) from a table for four (the only one available when I arrived at lunchtime) to a two-seater, to accommodate a larger party. This was mid-meal.

I'm on my own and will be a pensioner a lot sooner than you Knitted so I think you're way if the mark insinuating that I don't care about the elderly.

I'm talking in general about cafés in unban areas here.
Life is different in rural areas in Southern Europe I imagine but in many of my visits to cafés abroad there hasn't been a culture of staying for hours without consuming anything. If I've stayed for any length of time I've bought a second drink - I think that's polite.

I live in a town which isn't rural and the cafes are a popular place for pensioners to meet and hang around.

Always have been as far as I can tell.

My posts clearly state my issues are with the lone people that take up entire 3 seater sofas or such like ie with their bag, laptop etc. They are hogging the sofa & very clearly marking it as theirs while they are there. That is rude.

Same as with a busy train & someone places their bag on the spare seat beside them, deliberating avoiding eye contact with people who need a seat so that people end up having to ask them. But I guess assholes don't possess common decency?

SASASI it certainly is, but after your post it was suggested that people on their own shouldn't sit on sofas at all.

I wouldn't say lone people should've sit on sofas - as another poster said, maybe that's all that was available at the time. But they should show courtesy to other paying customers rather than bring twats.

should have & being

breastfeeding with iPhone

Of course SASASI - I agree.

I know it was the same coffee cups because the owner was muttering about it

well instead of muttering, perhaps he/she should grow some balls & request that they leave!

It's really unprofessional to mutter about customers who are lingering. I agree that the owners need to ask them if they want anything else and if not offer them the bill, making it clear they need to pay as tables are needed.

I don't think I should have to stand up and leave the second I finish eating and drinking, no. I wouldn't sit for two hours with one coffee but also I don't think cafe owners want people to walk in, shovel food and get out. That's McDonalds. If me and DH have bought food, coffees and a soft drink then we've probably spent over £20, a bit of a linger or look at the paper before we go is hardly 'entitled'. People chatting and being relaxed is what gives a nice little cafe a good atmosphere. And I think a lot of cafe owners want that, the money and custom comes from it.

No one has a 'right' to sit in a cafe for as long as they like spending as little as they can get away with. When I see this happening it's almost always men, usually with laptops (and on one occasion a stack of magazines) who take up a table for 4 for two hours drinking one cup of coffee. You don't need a complex algorithm to work out that's socially unacceptable and selfish. The cafe owner is not obliged toshelter anyone regardless of their personal circumstances. If the cafe's empty or has plenty of tables free, it's manageable, but you have to expect to move if people come in and there's no room for them because you're still taking up a table but not buying anything.

I absolutely do not care about this but I know it's a huge bone of contention here on MN. I never notice really, but then I am not a table hogger, too busy these days. I do remember ordering big hot chocolates and reading the paper for an hour or two in my childless single days though and no one seemed to care.

SASASI, I agree that anyone with common decency would not hog a sofa. But a lot of people don't and, in these cases, rather than complaining because you don't have 'the balls to sit beside them or opposite them', as you put it, just FIND the balls to do it!

All you have to do is make firm eye contact, or try to (I know people avoid this) and say politely 'Excuse me please, I'd like to sit here.'

Better than sitting somewhere uncomfortable and thinking dark thoughts about the person on the sofa, no?

Oh and if there's a sofa free I will sit on it. Why not? I'm single does this mean I never get to sit on a nice sofa?

ilovesooty, it is absolutely none of your business how long someone sits in a cafe. None what so ever.

it is between the customer and the management. If the management want to impose a minimum spend, or a maximum length of sit, they will do. The vast majority DON'T WANT TO! because, guess what, cafes are FOR SITTING IN.

If you want a seat and there isn't one, tough, other people were there before you. End of. You having a clanking great purse of gold coin to wave around does not give the right to turf other people out who are poorer than you..

There are no shortage of cafes, and no shortage of seats. Go somewhere else if the first one is full.

So does the same apply to pubs, which serve the same sort of paid-for community function but also still need to stay in business?

How many drinks should one have while watching the football?

Well obviously hijk we'll have to (politely, if you can manage that) accept that we don't agree about the primary purpose of cafés.