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The biggest issue for me in working in a cafe is confidentiality - its very difficult to keep work-related calls and designs under wraps.

For example, in the UK a doctor was recently struck off for transcribing patient details on a train - not the most sensible thing to do, but highlights that there are some jobs that require privacy.

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Agree, it's usually very hard to find a spot where your back is facing the wall. Especially as a single person. If you don't want to steal a 6-seater table the remaining option is usually the bar-window facing the street outside, meaning that everybody standing in line inside the cafe will have perfect view of your monitor.

Yeah, the need for privacy is the one thing that drives me to not want to work out of cafes and coffee shops at times. It's not that often that we are talking about anything truly secret / confidential (no patient data or anything like that), but still, there are certain things you don't want to broadcast to the world.

The other time it doesn't work, for me, is when you need use "stuff" to work. For example, sometimes if I'm meeting with my co-founder, I want an easel and a flip-chart pad and some markers to draw / diagram stuff. But I wouldn't want to bust up in the Barnes & Noble cafe and break that stuff out.

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