As a coffee shop/restaurant, we would appreciate the table to not be held for more than 2h with just a coffee and a pastry. It’s appreciated when we see our customers using a small table for themselves and their laptop rather than taking up a whole 8 seated table as well. 😊 Generally our customers have used their common sense and never had to “kick them out” or force them into buying some more, we’re lucky like that!

Depends on the place and how busy it is. I'd happily stay in a big chain shop with plenty of empty tables for a couple of hours. But a busy independent. I wouldn't linger.

A couple of my favourite coffee shops here in Switzerland have a 1hr limit for laptops.

This is why I stagger buying pastry after getting coffee 😅

I’ve ditched the laptop and work solely on my iPhone. No one knows what I’m doing on my phone at a cafe and I stay as long as I want. I eat and drink though

Unless they are super busy, I don't think there is a time limit....super busy, maybe 60-90 mins

For me it’s no more than a couple of hours. After that in have to buy something else or leave out of embarrassment. Nobody likes someone who takes the piss.

Many independent coffee shops are phasing out laptop working, including us. One of the comments here refers to coffee shops as valuable third spaces and we agree. Capitalism has us turning our third spaces into work spaces to our detriment. It’s time to switch off.

If I was the owner I’d be gently requesting people to leave after an hour of sitting there buying nothing. It’s not a public library.

I used to try and buy a drink per hour