From the cafe's perspective, it sounds like everything worked perfectly. Even though you couldn't get the seat you wanted, you still had brunch there. And the people working on laptops bought something there; if they couldn't use their laptops, they probably wouldn't have bought anything at all. That, I suppose, is the advantage of being the only convenient place that serves both cucumber and capers with their lox bagel.
Short term gains for long term reputation losses as an acceptable mode of business?
Serving both cucumber and capers with their lox bagels is not much of a defensible competitive advantage, but I guess the owner just needs to ride out customer churn until they hit their ipo and can punch their exit strategy... well...
