See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentlemen%27s_club and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tavern . Modern-day pubs in the UK serve a similar purpose, Coffeehouses in many US cities were this way (spacious, living-room-like seating, encouragement to hang out for hours, rather than buy-consume-leave) through the mid-90s. Some athletic or country clubs still have spaces like this.
Historically, whether something was considered an inn, a tavern, a public house, a club, or a coffeehouse had to do with taxation, mix of services,local expectations, and (in the 20th century) type of alcohol handling.
It’s rarer now, as it’s hard to scale to the density, anonymity, and ease of movement that started to occur in the mid- to late-20th-century. When your regulars are a few dozen people and 80% of your business, you can run a different style of room than you can when you’ve got a few regulars, but 90% of your clientele are unknown to you.
I’m not sure how complete my mental model is, but at least one factor is the cost/benefit of providing non-monetized services (comfortable space to hang out, taking hours of table space for relatively small payment). If you have a relatively small group of people providing most of your revenue, you can give them a lot of freebies without monitoring.
It becomes a disaster if strangers use up all your space for just a day at a time, crowding out your regulars. It is also problematic if mobility across providers is too common, as people can then choose DIFFERENT places to hang out in than they spend money in.
Really, this is just one aspect of the “race to the bottom” that purely economic optimization encourages. You’d rather sell a large amount of coffee/food very quickly to strangers, and just not provide the comfortable environment that doesn’t bring in revenue.
If you get 100 customers a day, 95% of which are well-known regulars, you need to monitor 5 of them more closely for bad-actor behavior, and you kicking out a non-regular is seen as detrimental to 5% of your people that day[1].
If you get 100 customers a day, 5% of which are well-known regulars, you need to monitor 95 of them more closely for bad-actor behavior, and you kicking out a non-regular is seen as detrimental to 95% of your people that day[1].
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentlemen%27s_club and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tavern . Modern-day pubs in the UK serve a similar purpose, Coffeehouses in many US cities were this way (spacious, living-room-like seating, encouragement to hang out for hours, rather than buy-consume-leave) through the mid-90s. Some athletic or country clubs still have spaces like this.
Historically, whether something was considered an inn, a tavern, a public house, a club, or a coffeehouse had to do with taxation, mix of services,local expectations, and (in the 20th century) type of alcohol handling.
It’s rarer now, as it’s hard to scale to the density, anonymity, and ease of movement that started to occur in the mid- to late-20th-century. When your regulars are a few dozen people and 80% of your business, you can run a different style of room than you can when you’ve got a few regulars, but 90% of your clientele are unknown to you.
Why was regularity / non-anonymity a factor that contributed to this format’s viability?
I’m not sure how complete my mental model is, but at least one factor is the cost/benefit of providing non-monetized services (comfortable space to hang out, taking hours of table space for relatively small payment). If you have a relatively small group of people providing most of your revenue, you can give them a lot of freebies without monitoring.
It becomes a disaster if strangers use up all your space for just a day at a time, crowding out your regulars. It is also problematic if mobility across providers is too common, as people can then choose DIFFERENT places to hang out in than they spend money in.
Really, this is just one aspect of the “race to the bottom” that purely economic optimization encourages. You’d rather sell a large amount of coffee/food very quickly to strangers, and just not provide the comfortable environment that doesn’t bring in revenue.
If you get 100 customers a day, 95% of which are well-known regulars, you need to monitor 5 of them more closely for bad-actor behavior, and you kicking out a non-regular is seen as detrimental to 5% of your people that day[1].
If you get 100 customers a day, 5% of which are well-known regulars, you need to monitor 95 of them more closely for bad-actor behavior, and you kicking out a non-regular is seen as detrimental to 95% of your people that day[1].
Assuming that all non-regulars see you kicking out a non-regular as a bad thing, and none of the regulars do.