At first glance this seems like a silly gimmick, or just another way of fleecing the public… but hang on! Read further and this is really a very interesting take on a café experience, one that could quite possibly take off.

The café has recently opened in London and is called Ziferblat, but the big difference with this venue is that all the snacks and drinks are free. All you have to pay is three pence (about five cents) for every minute you are there.

The Russian owners explain the concept on their website: ‘Ziferblat is a place where everyone can feel at home. Here, you’re free to be yourself, you can work, read a book, play piano, meet new people, attend events and at the same time drink as much tea or coffee as you want… Everything is free inside except the time you spend there, and by paying for the time you’ll be making a donation towards the further development of this social experiment.”

The great thing about this concept is that it is not really that expensive. You could, for example, spend over an hour there and run up a bill of around three to four euros. By London standards that really is not too bad at all! And it must work, as in Russia nine outlets have opened in the last couple of years, and they attract around 30,000 customers a month.
But, of course, all of us are thinking in terms of the money… whereas the whole idea of the place is the experience. The magazine Time Out London sent one of their bloggers along to check it all out and he quite clearly found it a very enjoyable experience: ‘People wander about, helping themselves to drinks, two students pore over books and on one table there’s evidence of flower arranging. As a record player softly pumps out Motown and fairy lights twinkle from the walls, it feels like a relaxed common room. We may only be a week into 2014, but this has to be a contender for the best opening of the year,’ he wrote.

The story of the Ziferblat opening has been reported all over the world, with much interest being taken by those who can see the potential of such a venue. One could argue that it is little more than a fancy internet café, but if the blogger is to be believed, it is a very different experience indeed.

Let’s wait and see…