Café bans laptops after customers ask staff to be quiet during Zoom calls

A café has baned laptops after work from home customers asked staff to be quiet during Zoom calls.

The owners of Fringe and Ginge in Canterbury, Kent, said people working on computers were ruining the atmosphere of the community coffee shop. Customers often buy a single coffee and then work for hours on their laptops – but the final straw came when they began asking staff to keep the noise down while were taking work calls.

Alfie Edwards, who owns the business with Olivia Walsh, his partner, said it was a “tough decision” but that it had ultimately been successful.

“I think what has changed massively is the dynamic and the way that people work,” he said.

“We had some really bad experiences with people, like asking us to turn music off so they could do Zoom meetings. We were asked to be quiet, we were making too much noise. Then we just sort of figured it out – this is not what it 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 cafés 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 duo set up the café in July 2020, shortly after the first Covid lockdown restriction was lifted, as thousands worked from home or faced furlough. However, as time progressed and lockdown rules were removed, they said workers would spend hours hunched over their computers.

Describing how the atmosphere changed since the laptop ban, Mr Edwards said: “It’s just so nice to have people who were previously strangers that now chat regularly.

“To see people connecting, we’ve kind of built a community here. It’s a neighbourhood hangout for a lot of people.

“There are already many places where you can rent desks, or people can work in the library.

“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 upset people, but it was the right decision.”

Hannah Swann, 28, who manages the nearby Garage Café, said she sympathised with the laptop ban but would not do so herself.

“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 café to be able to carry on and not be too bothered about it.

“Sometimes I think there might be a certain point where people do take advantage of it, if they just buy one coffee for the whole day sort of thing.

“But then again, I do feel like most customers are quite nice about it and keep the business going.

“I think cafés are a nice place to work, really, it’s a nice calm environment. I know a lot of people, where they kind of need stuff going on around them to focus.

“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.”

Lane Café in Belsize Park, north London, banned laptops during weekends in 2019 after customers complained there was not enough space to sit at a table.