Leave your laptop at the door: Tech-free cafes

I was lounging on a brown leather loveseat on a Wednesday afternoon last April. The sun beat through the window onto my head, warming my hair and fooling me into thinking that maybe the spring chill had finally turned to a warm summer breeze. I finished the latest row of the scarf I was knitting and poured myself another cup of maple walnut tea — soon to be my favorite. I didn’t touch my phone. It was nearly dead, and I was saving the last of its juice so I wouldn’t have to walk home in silence. I kind of just stared out the window. 

I was at Tea Haus, an Ann Arbor tea shop I had previously vowed to avoid due to their laptop-free policy. I had initially scoffed at the policy in annoyance; it was hindering my productivity. But I had been craving an afternoon tea and some alone time, so I made the trek to Kerrytown anyway. My bag felt unsettlingly light, as I hadn’t even brought my laptop along — a rarity for me these days. Though I anticipated having some separation anxiety from my electronics, I felt oddly at peace — like I was living in the real world for the first time in a while. I could hear the clinks of teacups clink, shuffle of playing cards, laughter and the scrape of chairs against the floor. It was then that I decided to end my vendetta against laptop-free cafes.

After the pandemic, my to-do list saw an exhausting influx of drab virtual tasks. By then, I was sick of doing work in my bedroom, so I took up residence in my local cafe. It was there that I did my homework, wrote stories, addressed thank you cards, took a mandated drivers training course after my speeding ticket and completed countless crossword puzzles. Usually, my best friends sat beside me doing tasks of their own. There’s something to be said about this sort of parallel play: Cafes became my designated place to get work done while still feeling the support and comfort of a social group. It felt far less isolating than staring at my computer alone — like I’d finally escaped a sort of solitary confinement and emerged into a fantasy world of bubbly voices and the sharp scent of espresso, muted only by the call of my to-do list. My computer felt like a prerequisite to join that world: a price to pay for enjoying the space.

By the time I ventured to Tea Haus, I’d entirely forgotten what it was like to do something purely for enjoyment rather than productivity. I began to suggest these laptop-free locations for catch-ups with friends, and games of chess with my sister. Still, I wasn’t sure where I stood on the whole “no laptops” rule. Was I destined once again to complete all my online work in the barren solitude of my home? To remain in the claustrophobic confines of the uninspiring Hatcher Graduate Library stacks? To what extent did I need to separate my work from my social life?

Conflicted and intrigued, I talked to some Ann Arbor business owners that employed these policies. Jim Saborio, the owner of Comet Coffee, summed things up perfectly.

“There are work cafes, and there are social cafes,” Saborio said. “And I wanted (Comet) to be a social cafe.”

At Comet, all but a few window seats have signs that kindly ask customers to keep the space laptop-free, leaving the majority of their tables open for people to enjoy each other’s (or their own) company without the distraction of a screen.

“My first job in coffee was when I was 18 years old in 1992,” Saborio said. “I’ve always loved cafes and the sort of microcommunity they create.”

Saborio went on to tell me about an experience that pushed him to reevaluate the modern cafe climate.

“Sometime in 2015, my wife and I went (to a local cafe) and we sat down and had tea,” he said. “And the place was so full of people working on laptops and wearing headphones that we didn’t really feel comfortable having a conversation.”

As I thought about Saborio’s story of the uncomfortably quiet cafe, I realized just how right he was. Just a few months prior, I had gone to a cafe with a friend and felt pressured to move to an obscure corner of the room so we didn’t disturb a slew of students working quietly. There’s nothing wrong with working in public, but it seems we’ve lost a degree of separation between our places to socialize and our places to lock in and get things done. 

Cafes — at least before the rise of such transportable tech — were once the perfect model of a third place. A third place (or third space) is a space that isn’t work nor home, but a location where people can gather and socialize as a separate activity. It strives to exist as a refuge from the potential stressors of the workplace or home life. Other examples include public parks, libraries, gardens and bars. In fact, dare I say that pubs, short for “public houses,” were sort of the original third place. Dating back to 15th-century England, these taverns were meant to offer a place to eat, drink, socialize and even sleep. Though many of us are probably glad not to live in 15th-century England, perhaps we shouldn’t scrap their idea of community building entirely.

Lisa McDonald, a trained tea sommelier and owner of Tea Haus, seeks to maintain the intention of third places by asking that customers don’t bring computers into her shop at all, not even offering public Wi-Fi.

“I think that prior to COVID, the third space was a social environment,” McDonald said. “And then during COVID and post-COVID, that third space just was an extension of work, and I didn’t want that.” 

McDonald explained that her kids were young when she opened Tea Haus, and she knew she wanted them to spend plenty of time in the shop with her.

“My kids have spent the majority of their lives here,” she said. “Knowing that going in, I wanted to make sure that the community was important.”

McDonald noticed the effect that the pandemic had on the community both inside and outside of cafes. She told me that maintaining that environment for her kids was a major motivator in instituting her laptop-free policy.

“I have very outgoing kids and (during the pandemic) I saw them kind of retreat into being online for school, online for clubs, online for everything,” she explained. “So I was like, ‘OK, this is ridiculous.’ I think we need to reconnect by completely disconnecting.”

I found myself agreeing wholeheartedly. Although I loved to do work alongside my friends, that type of interaction (or lack thereof) began to encroach on a space that was meant for more conversation. It became routine that when I met a friend at the cafe, we would arrive with our computers as if we had some kind of visceral ache for productivity. The boundaries between work and social time began to blur and suddenly there was always a computer screen mediating the conversation. It almost began to feel embarrassingly vulnerable to stare into a friend’s eyes as they spoke to me over coffee, with no electronic shield to hide behind. I suddenly realized I wanted out of that vicious cycle.

I’ve decided that my initial resistance to these laptop-free policies is the very reason they’re so important. In an age where productivity feels paramount, most of us need a little push to spend some time away from our work, nurturing our relationships while we converse over our favorite drinks. People like Saborio and McDonald are giving us that nudge. 

By no means am I making an argument against study dates and homework sessions — there is certainly a place for both work and play.  But I’ve come to realize that those places shouldn’t necessarily be the same. As we each continue the never-ending battle of balancing our work and social lives, I encourage you to stop fighting for a second. Go get a cup of your favorite beverage. And maybe, instead of a laptop, just bring a friend.

Statement Columnist Paige Wilson can be reached at wipaige@umich.edu. 

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