Why Some Coffee Shops Never Get Busy (Even When Everything Seems Fine)
I didn’t originally plan to write about this coffee shop. It just so happened that I had some time today, so I walked in and sat there for a while— about forty minutes in total. When I left, I suddenly realized something: I already knew why it never gets busy. The shop itself was actually very quiet. Not noisy. Not chaotic. The coffee wasn’t bad, and the space was fairly comfortable. If you were just passing by and took a quick look, you’d probably think there was nothing wrong with it. The first ten minutes felt completely ordinary. The barista was doing their own thing. Some people came in to order, and some left almost immediately. Everything sat in that vague middle ground— not good, not bad. At that point, I didn’t feel there was any obvious problem with the place. But slowly, I started to notice one small detail— Almost no one actually sat down. Over the next twenty minutes or so, I wasn’t deliberately counting foot traffic. I was just unconsciously ...