Sorry, this cafe isn’t your co-working space

“ATTENTION: NOT A WORK-FRIENDLY CAFE” reads an indignant three-star Google review of Altry, a coffee roastery in Gurugram. “I decided to spend my Saturday morning here… I was disappointed when the staff told me it’s not a work-friendly cafe. I mean, I’m paying for my coffee and food, the cafe is empty. Why can’t you let me work in peace? Opening my laptop here became super stressful.”

Surprisingly, founder Sahil Bhambri is unfazed by this condemnation—he’s heard it all before. “I’ve received backlash, criticism, and negative reviews from so many people,” the 30-year-old proprietor admits. You would think stingy freelancers, who nurse one black coffee through the day, are bad for business. But Bhambri and the ever-expanding roster of coffee shops that are discouraging walk-ins armed with MacBooks only think of the keyboard jabbers as mood killers: “The reality, though, is that banning laptops at a cafe in Gurugram is probably one of the worst commercial decisions I could have made. I lose customers and revenue because of it.”

His coffee shop is not the only spot stacking up bad ratings for just this one reason. Look up Alag, a small hipstery cafe in Goa’s Siolim with a fitting tagline—‘a slow lifestyle’—and you will find the same ferocity in many reviews. “We used to try to explain the thought behind the ban, but we were lectured on the business we were losing,” confesses co-founder Uddipan Sarmah. “Eventually, we stopped defending it. We’ll take the one star but the ban stands.”

A few weeks ago, X user Kautuk’s complaint about the ‘recent trend’ of coffee shops like Subko in Bengaluru disallowing laptops practically started a war on the internet: should cafes—seen today as modern third spaces and welcoming, neutral environments distinct from one’s home and workplace—ban laptops? Opinion is divided.

The Covid-19 pandemic caused a permanent increase in remote and hybrid working models. Since then, eateries offering (debatably) affordable snacks, free Wi-Fi and charging points have sprouted up on bylanes in every Indian town and city. Some spaces, including larger chains like Starbucks, Third Wave, and Blue Tokai, which were more likely to be able to afford the slow turnover of tables, were designed to cater to WFH crowds. “As someone wanting to spend the weekend working on side projects and personal side quests while sitting at a nice spot with some good vibes, sipping coffee or something, where do I go?” Kautuk lamented.

In over a hundred comments below, users passionately debated the pros and cons of this no-laptop policy. “People need to enjoy their weekends, unlike this bloke,” one commenter quipped. Another empathised: “Come on! Let’s be easy on them. Not all are lucky to have homes they can work from peacefully.” A reply to the latter read: “It’s a hit on the biz. They need to rotate tables.”

Funnily enough, Subko Bengaluru—at the centre of this heated debate—doesn’t, in fact, have a complete ban on laptop luggers. All they ask is that when the cafe is full, they move to designated work zones so that more guests can be accommodated. “But there’s absolutely no judgement towards cafes that choose to disallow laptops altogether,” stresses Neha Joshi, head of strategic growth and operations at the brand. “At the end of the day, every cafe owner has a business to run. People who work from these spots occupy seats for hours, order a single low-value beverage, use the wi-fi. That’s a real opportunity cost for the business. And of course, a cafe feels a bit dull when everyone is just staring at their screens.”

On average, remote workers spend only about ₹500 a day on beverages or a baked snack. Yet for Bhambri and Sarmah, the laptop ban is about more than just business. After all, their refusal to budge on this strict policy is admittedly losing them money. Across the entire country, only a handful of coffee shops are brave enough to ban laptops and risk the ire of unhappy customers, so much so that a quick ‘no laptop cafes’ search on Google presents you with a comprehensive filtered database of work-friendly spaces on laptopfriendly.co. One must dig and dive deep to find names like Gram Street and Café Lota in Gurugram that also discourage laptop usage, as does Mumbai’s famous Boojee Café in Bandra. Several Irani cafes, like Kyani & Co at Marine Lines and Britannia & Co at Fort, are the blueprint for this philosophy. These OG third spaces often come with a borderline amusing list of countless rules. There’s ‘No flirting with cashier’ and ‘No free advice’, but the very first rule is invariably the same: ‘No laptop’.

Today, hustle culture has made black coffee an aesthetic: in colleges and offices, it is not uncommon to hear someone remark about how they’ve downed three coffees to stay up all night and finish a presentation, just as it is now normal to coyly brag about dark circles. To Bhambri, this very idea of coffee as fuel is offensive. The entitlement with which people demand to use their laptops concerns him. “I don’t think every hour of a person’s life needs to justify itself through output, and I don’t think every public space has the responsibility to accommodate every need,” he argues, adding that the intention a space carries matters. “My issue is with this idea that work should follow us everywhere. We already carry enough urgency into our lives. I don’t think every environment needs to reinforce it.”

Sarmah is saddened by the dystopian sight of strangers sitting next to each other, faces buried in laptops, not once looking up from their screens to observe their surroundings. “A coffee shop is one of the few places left where strangers can cross paths and real conversations can still happen,” he notes. “We wanted to protect that. We also want people to be present for what we make: to taste, notice, not half-watch a screen while it goes cold.” 

Ultimately, people’s frustration at this laptop ban comes from a deeper infrastructural issue: to this day, most cities and towns in India lack truly accessible and affordable public infrastructure and third spaces built for communities to work, play, and spend time without shelling out money. Libraries, parks, and coworking spaces can be counted on the fingers of one hand—where, then, do people go, except cafes that bear the brunt of their outrage?

Fortunately, there are also many who are grateful for the temporary peace that comes with a laptop ban. Another Google review of Altry—this one five stars—reads: “No typical ‘everyone on laptops’ scene. You actually see people talking, reading, just being present. Felt refreshing for a change.” 

It reminds me of the only time I tried to work from a beachside cafe on a vacation in Goa: next to me, an insufferable man in his thirties was on a first date, explaining to a French woman how he was always the smartest person in every room. On my right, two best friends basked in the sun as sea waves crashed into each other. A family entered, their toddler gently carrying a tiny black puppy they planned on adopting. It took me all of ten minutes to slam my laptop shut.