When I’m visiting a cafe to get some work done, I often feel bad that I’m taking up a table that could be going to someone else. This German cafe has a different approach: it charges by the time spent, not by the coffee consumed: it’s not yet clear if it will catch on.
Customers are charged €0.05 per minute, amounting to €3.00 an hour. When they come in the door, Volkova gives them a wristband with the time marked on it. When they leave they hand it back and their bill is calculated to the minute. The concept of time is turned on its head, with several clocks purposely showing different times. The intention is for people to forget about time and focus on those around them…
(Via disassociated.com)
Thanks for linking to this Dave. If you want to emulate the cafe experience, sans the worry of sitting around too long a time, check out http://coffitivity.com/ … it's meant to help enhance creativity, but it also makes for a great white noise app.