So, what do you look for in a great cafe?

When it comes to coffeeshops, there seem to be two types of people: those who use laptops and those who don't. And they don't seem to like each other very much.

Take a look at some recent statements from coffeeshop reviews on Yelp:

At first I thought it was cool in an "only in San Francisco" type of way, but now I think the table-hogging by laptop users is getting a little out of hand.  The last couple of times I've been here I've witnessed people grow bored of browsing through Flickr or sending emails, get up and just wander off for 20 or so minutes, leaving their computer and long-ago-finished coffee cup to guard their table.  Meanwhile, the people who just want to sit and enjoy a cup of coffee (and perhaps have an actual conversation with real people) are relegated to hovering anxiously around the counter and surveying the room every two minutes for a free seat.

They have free WiFi and lots and lots of free electrical outlets to plug into. Most cafes hide the electrical outlets, so that was great that they let everyone use theirs.

"The first thing you'll notice is a sea of laptop computers.  Everywhere you look, people dressed in black outfits stare slack-jawed into the soft, luminous glow of their LCD displays while they do everything from compiling source code to cruising Craigslist.org for a new significant other.  Alas, the culture of any coffee shop lies somewhere on a scale that has unbridled interaction at one end and introverted solitude on the other.  You don't need much more than a quick look around to fathom where this place sits within the spectrum of human engagement.

"I work from home sometimes but being all cooped up in my apt drives me crazy.  Do ppl have recommendations where one can bring their laptop to a cafe and connect up to the Internet for a few hours?

When I walked in I felt like I was in an office with no cubicles. Laptops everywhere.  Don't these people have an office to pretend to be at or a home office?

At CTTP we try to strike a balance between the laptop users and the non-laptop users. We want our store to be a welcoming place for people who want to read, hang out, chat, or work on their computers. But sometimes it seems like things get a little off kilter, with the balance shifting toward the laptop users.

As part of our overall project of squaring wifi use with profitability, we are now looking for ways to encourage social interaction at the shop. Starting in the next few weeks we will introduce Coffee to the People Social Hours: extremely high business periods on Saturday and Sunday afternoons when we will shut off our free wireless to allow our non-laptop using visitors a chance to enjoy all of the other facets our store has to offer.

Do you have any other ideas for encouraging social interaction at our shop without driving our much valued laptop customers away?