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?

If you're watching the football (as I shall be doing this afternoon) I think it's reasonable to expect that you consume a drink while doing so.

when I have I not been polite? you are the one trying to boss everyone around, and tell them what they can and cannot do, when it is nothing to do with you at all.

Try looking back at your post hijk

If you can't see it yourself I doubt if anything I say will make it any clearer to you.

Good heavens, we're discussing stuff on the internet. Of course it's nothing to do with anyone else. However they are fully allowed to have an opinion on it. You're also telling people what they can do when cafe owners and other interested parties might disagree. It's privately owned space, you have no rights over it.

Cafes are for sitting in? Er, no, they aren't bus shelters.

They are for buying food and drink and consuming those while sitting down. As long as you can get a seat that isn't occupied by someone who thinks it's ok to nurse a drink for 2 hours and deprive others of the facilities.

Why are people being so black and white? Cafes don't have one 'primary purpose' on which we must all agree, or otherwise fight about.

They're for buying and eating food and drink AND ALSO for sitting in.

If they weren't intended as places to sit in, then everywhere that sells food and drink would be either a fast-food place with slippery plastic chairs to encourage you to hurry or a hole-in-the-wall takeaway place.

Cafes wouldn't have sofas, comfy chairs, papers, music etc if they didn't want to encourage people to sit and feel relaxed.

On the other hand, there is or should be an element of common sense: if a cafe is busy and people are visibly hovering and not finding seats while you sit there with one coffee, you should buy something else or move on.

It's not that hard and it need not be that contentious either.

Why are people being so black and white?

No grey areas allowed on MN. Either reasonable or unreasonable. Pick a side.

Yes, Sparkling, you're right. I forget sometimes.

This is totally the cafe owner's call. If they don't mind someone hogging a table with one coffee when they could be serving a family of four lunch, I guess that's their decision?

But I agree with the annoyance over single people taking up tables for 4 (assuming there are no smaller alternatives free). Happens on the trains as well. But in Germany people would just sit down on the table with you.

As for buggies - what was wrong with the foldable Maclaren ones that didn't take up much space, either folded or unfolded?

Also not allowed Only-

Thinking out of the box
Making allowances
Common sense
Basing your comments on personal experience of the subject matter

All right all right! I've become lax, haven't I? Must not be on here enough.

If there's no spare tables I target a group who look like they've been there hours. Ask politely if we can share (no ones ever refused..)

On Every occasion the presence of my (well behaved) 3 & 1 yr olds has had a magical repelling property & we have the table to ourselves in a matter if minutes.

It worked very well on two people with laptops on regent street Starbucks on Friday

We then had a 20 min coffee at the end of which we offered to share with a couple of shoppers as we were about to leave.

But I'm sure lots of cafes are pleased to have the business of regular customers even if they linger a bit reading the paper after they have had their drink.

So cafes are for going in, sitting down, eating or drinking, getting up immediately and leaving.

Now you just need to go around all the cafes where I live and inform the owners and the pensioners and the workmen and the office lunchers and everyone in the world who uses cafes that they are doing it WRONG according to you and have to stop it.

And then half the cafes will shut down. Hooray!

I have AIBU hidden as a topic Only I don't even know how I came across this thread.

I think avoid cafes based on this and the other thread. Too many ways to get 'going to a cafe' totally incorrect.

If you listened to MN you'd never be able to do anything for fear of doing it wrong.

So next time someone gets invited to meet a friend in a cafe the answer is NO as they might want to sit and have a chat and that is not what they're for.

We need an 'MN Rules of going to Cafes' and get it laminated. Keep it with you at all times.

Only lovers perhaps but I guess I don't as I'm not sure what response I'd get from someone who has already demonstrated they are not reasonable?

I don't need a tirade of verbal abuse from some random in a coffee shop so I don't. Especially when I'm needing to breastfeed, I just go somewhere else & that cafe has lost my business.

Rude and self righteous because the other sole person wanting to sit there has not got the confidence to ask you to share but thats your fault

I know! It's my fault I can't read someone's mind, or that I can't instil them with confidence to sit next to me.

All my fault. I'm a naughty lone hot chocolate drinker. Everyone knows we're the dangerous ones.

SASASI, I do this often (I actively seek out people who are being twattish and have their bags etc on seats ). No one has ever refused, although there is sometimes some huffing.

I'm a naughty lone hot chocolate drinker

Me too, Hands up, bag to rights, a Naughty Lone Hot Chocolate Drinker who Likes the comfy Sofas shoot me now.

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?

Oh absolutely NickiFury because you are a failed person. I mean, your DH is non-existent & so doesn't earn a huge salary which allows you to loll about in a café all day pretending you are god's gift to the nation by occasionally bfing your pfb, & policing other people's behaviour.

I'm really surprised you didn't know that these are The Rules.

Those leather sofas in cafes. In my experience they tend to be vv soft, and a little bit sticky, and way too low for comfortable reaching to table for latte.

Most unsatisfactory.

Cafe are businesses.

They are not vulnerable voiceless defenceless charities.

If the owners have an issue with people buying a coffee and working there for a couple of hours, then they should say something. If they don't, then there is no reason why someone shouldn't do it.

The explosion of coffee shops in the UK is a direct result of the change in how coffee shops are viewed. As a home from home. The likes of Starbucks etc actively encourage this thinking.

As for the annoyance about single people take up larger tables, what happens if you go to the cafe and there is only one table free. It's a four seater.

In that case i would lie star shaped on the table just to be sure Enjoy.

I would sit at it. But not expect to be sat alone for long.