Caffe Warnings

I like a good coffeehouse, especially one that is open on the late side, since I am a night owl and there are many nights when I am in Sacramento without Melanie and like a good spot to drink a proper espresso and to read. Very few bars in America fit the bill. They are too noisy, have too many televisions, and tend to frown on someone who drinks an espresso and (maybe) a glass of grappa. They prefer someone who is drinking higher markup stuff, and plenty of it. Reading in most bars is impossible, and that is what I like to do when I have a night alone.

So I find a good coffeehouse, and a backup and stick to them. Right now, in Sacramento, there are four good coffeehouses, an embarrassment of riches unheard of when I grew up here. We would have one that would be perfect, but then the weather would turn sour, the economy would soften, and they would notice that their last hour was the least profitable. So they would close an hour earlier...and would notice that their last hour was the least profitable and would close another hour earlier. Eventually they would go out of business.

The lesson that these caffes failed to learn was that the last hour is not the hour to pay attention to. It will be slow, because people think "shall we go to Caffe Such and Such? No, they close in fourty minutes. Let's go to Caffe Ventiquattro instead." So a caffe sacrifices the last hour to make sure that people come during the penultimate hour of operations. Chances are they will buy something during the last hour as well.

So when a caffe closes that hour earlier, people who go out for coffee at ten will go somewhere else. Maybe they will not even stay for more than an hour, but they know that they will not feel rushed.

Fortunately a critical mass has been achieved in downtown Sacramento that seems to be able to sustain itself, and there doesn't seem to be any danger of the good caffes making this fatal move. However, the caffe that some of the North Beach Lectura Dantis go to after our meetings is closing early because business has been slow. Now, I can understand the temptation, because the owner thinks, "I am paying these guys and the utilities, and that last hour stinks." But I also know that we have gone to another caffe more times in the last month than ever before.

So, if any of my readers are in the coffeehouse business, heed this warning!