Would you pay ₹99 an hour to work from a cafe? A LinkedIn user’s post about a Bengaluru cafe charging customers to use it as a workspace has prompted a debate online. While some users supported the policy, others felt there were better ways to discourage people from occupying tables for hours.
LinkedIn user Karthik Suroju shared a photo of the sign outside the cafe. It read, “Workspace Rental Charges: ₹99/hr.”
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In the caption accompanying the post, he wrote, “I walked into a cafe in Indiranagar and saw this sign at the entrance. Nobody was sitting there working. Not one person.”
He went on to question the approach, saying, “I think the sign is solving the wrong problem. Cafes genuinely can’t absorb someone nursing one coffee for five hours. Fair enough. But pricing the awkwardness out loud doesn’t invite people in. It repels them.”
He concluded, “There’s a real problem here. This isn’t the answer to it.”
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Internet weighs in
The post prompted a lively debate, with several users saying the cafe was justified in introducing the charge, while others felt the business could have tackled the problem in a more customer-friendly way.
One person wrote, “Or maybe they wanted to repel them. They don’t want people buying a ₹150 coffee and occupying the space for hours.”
Another commented, “I am 100 per cent in support of this cafe, especially because my last few visits to my favourite cafes have been filled with people setting up complete workstations on the tables, leaving hardly 20 to 30 per cent of the tables vacant for people who came to enjoy their food.”
Others felt the policy could have been communicated differently. One user wrote, “If the real issue is people occupying tables for hours with minimal orders and limiting space for new customers, the messaging should address that behaviour directly. Something like ‘A screen-free cafe’, ‘This space is designed for conversations, not co-working’, or even designated laptop-free hours would communicate the cafe’s positioning far better. Charging ₹99 an hour feels like solving an internal operational problem while presenting it as a service to customers.”
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Another user echoed the cafe’s reasoning, writing, “It only repels the people they want to repel. People who buy one coffee and stay for hours are not exactly the customers they want. I don’t see this affecting anyone else because the average person does not go to cafes simply to work.”
Meanwhile, one commenter suggested a middle ground. “I would agree with this approach, but it should apply only if a table is occupied for more than two hours. Bengaluru is a tech hub, so this is not a difficult problem to solve. A balanced solution could work for both the cafe and its customers.”
Another user proposed a different idea altogether, suggesting the cafe introduce a paid day pass that includes meals, refreshments and a dedicated workspace instead of charging an hourly fee.
(Disclaimer: This report is based on user-generated content from social media. HT.com has not independently verified the claims and does not endorse them.)
