[dylukes]

American coffee shops have never been cafes. They're glorified caffeine dispensaries. Buy your drink, get out, drink it somewhere else.

In Europe no one bats an eye at you spending your entire day in cafe seating using the WiFi.

[faeriechangling]

I would say this is much more of an urban/rural thing than an American/European thing. Also a discount/luxury thing.

If you are running a coffee shop in an insanely expensive urban area slinging $2 coffees, you need a certain turnover of customers or you will just straight up go out of business. I have been hustling franchise owners walking around their resteraunts stalking people to make sure people didn't mill about for longer than TWENTY MINUTES. Didn't finish eating? Fuck you buy something else or finish eating on the sidewalk.

If you're in a suburban coffee shop with a cheaper lease sipping on a $9 iced coffee drink and a $7 pastry, and the place is dead, not only will the staff likely not care that you're sitting there, they might chat you up so stave off the boredom.

[indigo0086]

This. Urban areas are more likely to either see or equate your taking up space in their restaurant, even if you're not working from home. In NH most coffee shops I go to are absolutely empty, and usually have a couple people getting breakfast or coffee while working and it's a regular in out turnover or enough space that it doesn't matter. Even in Manchester which would be the closest thing to a city in NH

[BHSPitMonkey]

I think you're just describing two kinds of cafés which can be found on either continent.

[toyg]

I know for a fact that, if you hog a table for more than 30-45 min in most busy cafes in Milano, you'll get hate-looks at the very minimum, if not literally kicked out. It changes the further you move from the city centre - as rents get lower, of course. It's also why WiFi in cafes has been quietly de-emphasized, over the last 10 years, pretty much everywhere in Italy. Money is money.