Working from a café — a practical guide.

The unwritten rules

• Buy something every 90–120 minutes. A second coffee, water, pastry, or lunch. Don't nurse one filter for four hours.
• Take a smaller table. If you're solo, don't park at a four-top.
• No video calls without headphones. Better — step outside for calls. Cafés are not phone booths.
• Read the room. If a queue forms and seats are scarce, wrap up and free the table.
• Respect explicit rules. A handful of cafés ban laptops at peak times. Their profile in Roasters surfaces those rules.

What makes a café laptop-friendly

• Reliable WiFi (test it before committing to a long session)
• Outlets along the bench or at most tables
• Deep tables — not just bar stools or shallow window benches
• Open through the morning and afternoon, not just brunch hours
• A coffee program that's worth staying for
• Music kept under conversation level
• No "no laptop after noon" rule

The best cities for working from cafés

A few cities have built their scenes around remote workers — abundant specialty cafés, affordable cost of living, fast WiFi, and active digital nomad communities.

• Lisbon — the European nomad capital
• Bali — Canggu and Ubud are nomad hubs
• Mexico City — Roma Norte and Condesa
• Berlin — café culture meets startup density
• Buenos Aires — Palermo's café density
• Bangkok — Ari and Thonglor

Why specialty cafés beat chains for work

Chain coffee shops have predictable WiFi but bad coffee and chair-after-an-hour culture. Specialty cafés generally have better coffee, more inviting rooms, and staff who'll remember your order by the second visit. The trade-off is that some are explicitly anti-laptop — Roasters lists which.

Find laptop-friendly cafés near you

Download Roasters and filter any city by laptop-friendly. The community flags which cafés have reliable WiFi, outlets, and tolerate long sessions.