Cute cafe in beautiful neighborhood. NOT the best place for remote workers or students.

Coffee Garden has had issues with people abusing their internet or engaging in other inappropriate behaviors regarding working from a coffee shop (e.g., staying long hours without buying product from the coffee shop, fighting over table spaces to work, and downloading illegal content). It makes sense to me that they do not want to support this type of customer. When I missed the sign because I didn't have my glasses on (the text is about 18 font and only posted by the cashier rather so i wasnt close enough to read it until i was already placing my order) the employee kindly suggested the different places I could get free wifi. I realized i missed the sign because i couldnt read it which was my fault and I decided to stay because I have a hot spot for when public WiFi is not available.

The issue that arose for me was the way I saw the owner handling comments from people who wanted to use the internet but then learned it wasn't available. Instead of a template reply that said the store no longer provides wifi because it was abused and they want a socializing versus working environment for their shop, the owner replied to people's comment with replies like "sorry you didn't read the signs" and "free wifi is dead", in addition to their sign that said "talk to each other. Pretend it's 1995".

The majority of coffee shops in the area offer WiFi especially with the number of remote workers that are around since covid. Half of the people I saw come in after me were remote workers, many of which also missed the sign about wifi. Instead of making it apparent that their goal is not a place to work but to socialize (and thus to decide to advertise as such similar to cafes like the Rose Establishment) they have instead decided to put it solely on the customer as not reading the signs that are hard for people to get close enough to read before they place an order.

I have a feeling that I'm going to get a similar response from the owner which is fine. My goal is to provide other customers who are wanting a place to work on a laptop and who may not be able to read their sign due to visual impairments. Despite the owners responses, sometimes people miss signs because they are unexpected, poorly placed or are unreadable, not just because they "choose" to not read the signs.