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So I'm currently in a dorm room with 4 other people, I can't get enough peace, quiet and room to concentrate on art because I want to improve. So I wanted to go to a nice silent café where I can focus and nobody will bother me.
My question is, how long can I stay in a café by ordering a cup of coffee, as ethically as possible of course. Maybe i can extend my stay by eating my lunch there too?.
This will all depend on the rules of a particular place, how busy it is, what the staff are like and the impression they get of you.
If you treat the staff like shit, buy only one cup of the cheapest coffee on the menu, sip at it for literally hours, and are oblivious to other customers looking in vain for a seat during busy times, then you'll quite likely be invited to move along.
On the other hand, it's likely you'll be left alone if you're polite to the staff, leave a reasonable tip, get another coffee or buy a snack every once in a while, don't make a nuisance of yourself by loudly yacking away on your phone or creating some other disturbance, and depart with a cheery wave to the staff if there's a sudden demand for seating.
Sometimes the staff in such places can be dickheads, but usually they're pretty tolerant of people lingering and unobtrusively getting on with whatever they're working on. If the manager has any sense, they should realise that a lot of people are put off if they're looking for a café or restaurant and come across one with no customers at all. That suggests it's a place people avoid, so you simply being there is a sort of silent, positive review of the establishment.
I think most places will let you stay for at least a few hours if you buy something as long as they are either not very busy, in which case they may ask you to leave to have new customers be able to sit in, or continue to buy stuff occasionally.
Used to work in a cafe and occasionally I would notice a person who has been there for hours and no one really cared.
I've stayed in a café for hours before. In high school me and my boyfriend at the time would go chill at our favorite café after school some days, since it was closeby and it was very cosy. Only ordered a coffee. No one told us to leave even though we stayed for hours and just took up space... I guess it depends on the place. A very small café might be more strict about how long you stay due to having less seatings.
either stay around till they kick you out or ask someone there
it might depend on whos workin there that day
J.K. Rowling wrote most of the 1st couple Harry Potter books sitting in a cafe.
She ordered coffee, a small lunch later, another coffee, etc... and everyone could see that she was busy writing.
They had no idea for many years. Now that Table in that cafe is famous... and J.K. Rowling is welcome whenever she visits.