By Bea Garrard and Chloe Selvester

When cafe customers told staff to keep noise down because they were interrupting Zoom calls, owner Alfie Edwards decided things had to change.

The disheartened Canterbury bistro boss mounted an extraordinary fightback - by rolling out an outright ban on the devices.

He says the "tough decision" was well received, with many punters at his Fringe and Ginge venue prefering to socialise rather than spending time on the screen.

Mr Edwards and partner Olivia Walsh, who run the King's Mile cafe together, are believed to be the first in the city to ban laptops.

The duo set up shop in July 2020, shortly after the first Covid lockdown restriction was lifted, as tens of thousands worked from home or faced furlough.

“We opened to just one person in at a time,” he explained. “That was the sort of restrictions that were in place, and it meant we got to know our customers intimately.

“It was a really nice way of getting to introduce ourselves too – we just really try to get to know customers and it’s sometimes challenging.”

But as time progressed and lockdown rules fell away, floods of workers would spend hours hunched over computers, killing the friendly vibe.

“We had laptops in here. I think what has changed massively is the dynamic and the way that people work," he explained.

“So we had some really bad experiences with people, like asking us to turn music off so they could do Zoom meetings, like Teams meetings. We were asked to be quiet, we were making too much noise.

“Then we just sort of figured out it – this is not what it is about.

“There are so many places you can go and rent desk space, you can work in the libraries.

“There are loads of places where they’re dedicated to people working - and they have cafes as well.

“Here, we just realised we wanted to take hospitality back, have it dedicated to just serving people and letting them have a nice experience.”

Some customers would order one drink and work at a table for hours, preventing others from being seated.

Taking matters into his own hands, Mr Edwards rolled out an outright laptop ban to restore the sense of community his team enjoys.

Describing how the atmosphere changed, he said: “It’s just so nice to have people who were previously strangers that now chat regularly.

"To see people connecting, we’ve kind of built a community here.

“It's a neighbourhood hangout for a lot of people.

“There are already many places where you can rent desks, or people can work in the library,

"We aren't a big space and we're social here - that's a big part of it.”

But the east Londoner admits enforcing the new rules was a "tough decision".

"It's just something we had to do, you don't want upset people, but it was the right decision," he added.

Currently, the cafe has five out of five stars on TripAdvisor, making it the city’s sixth most popular.

Lyla H wrote in a recent review: "Lovely chilled atmosphere, a brilliant ethos - no laptops!

“You can actually switch off and enjoy the experience."

One reviewer said: “We can’t wait to fly back to the UK from Melbourne just for some coffee with these guys."

Another added: “Best coffee I’ve had potentially anywhere, I’ll regularly walk a mile across town passing about seven coffee shops to grab a drink here.”

At the nearby Lost Sheep Cafe, assistant manager Rachel Clifton, 26, says people setting up mini offices can affect table turnover time, branding the Fringe and Ginge’s move “fair play”.

“But at the same time it does bring customers in if you can have students sitting on their laptops,” she added.

“That’s why we got our free Wi-Fi set up properly so we could encourage it more.

“People come with their laptops here probably because it’s a cheap way to get out of the house, you know, buy one coffee and you can be here for over an hour and a half quite easily, for three pounds or whatever.

“It’s cheap and it’s a nice environment.

“We are more than welcome to have them in. We do have a free Wi-Fi that has a 90-minute guideline.

“And after that you will have to pay extra.

“We don’t mind, as long as you purchase something from the shop floor if you’re on your laptop.

“Unfortunately for us, in the circumstances here, we only have one plug socket.”

Hannah Swann, 28, who manages the Garage Cafe in Sun Street, admits some laptop users can take liberty but the majority are courteous.

“Sometimes I think there might be a certain point where people do take advantage of it, if they just buy one coffee for the whole day sort of thing,” she said.

“But then again, I do feel like most customers are quite nice about it and keep the business going.

“I think cafes are a nice place to work really - it’s a nice calm environment. I know a lot of people - I know I do - where they kind of need stuff going on around them to focus.

“We allow laptops here. Most people are nice about it, sometimes people do take advantage of it, but we usually have enough room in this cafe to be able to carry on and not be too bothered about it.

“In the space Fringe and Ginge are in, I do understand it, just because if they did allow laptops they would be filled all day and not have any switch over with customers really.”

Owner of Moat Tea Rooms, Nimmy Sandhu, 42, says he is not keen on the culture of laptops inside cafes.

“I suppose people working on their laptops is just the culture now. I wouldn’t particularly want it in here, but it is the culture now, isn’t it? It seems to be anyway,” he said.

“I wouldn’t want it in here because it’s a cafe for coffee-and-go, not sitting in here for hours doing something on your computer.

“We don’t have a policy. We don’t have customers on their laptops in here that often. So occasionally we will let somebody use their laptop because they can plug it in here.”

Yvonne Eng, 24, who works in the city’s Burgate Coffee House, added: “People come to cafes with their laptops because it’s a change of environment. Obviously there’s coffee and cakes and stuff – it’s a good distraction.

“It probably means they work better.

“We don’t have a policy. For me, sitting in my room is not nice.

“The change of environment in a cafe is nice. It’s always better being at a cafe than being at home. “

Bakers & Baristas boss Fadaf Sarooq, 40, says a lot of customers bring laptops in.

“I don’t mind it, whatever they are comfortable with,” he said.

“People need to be careful with their laptops around hot drinks and stuff, but that’s a common-sense thing.”