Where is coffee from — and why does a 41st-floor cafe draw crowds?
A chain cafe located on the 41st floor of an office building in Guangzhou went viral because customers can photograph the distant Canton Tower through floor-to-ceiling windows. Per-person spending is low, no reservation is required, and visitors only need to register at the front desk to go upstairs, so large numbers of young people arrive to take check-in photos.
The success has a cost for the people who work there. Elevator congestion and occupied public areas have frustrated office workers in the building, and property management later capped daily queue tickets and removed rest chairs and tables. The case shows how a coffee shop's location and view can turn a drink into a photo destination.
A chain coffee shop store by.jpg located on the 41st floor of an office building in Guangzhou quickly went viral on social media because of its close-up photo opportunities with Canton Tower. The per-person spending is not high, no reservation is needed, and as long as you register at the front desk, you can go upstairs to take photos, attracting a large number of young people to come and check in. However, the ensuing problems such as elevator congestion and occupied public areas have made office workers in the building miserable. The property management later limited the number of daily queue tickets and removed the rest chairs and tables. How will this high-altitude coffee craze end?
▲
Click to follow | Daily specialty coffee culture magazine Coffee Workshop
Recently, "high-altitude coffee" that lets you appear in the same frame as Guangzhou's Canton Tower has become popular on social media. In the photos shared by netizens, some people lean by the floor-to-ceiling windows, while others simply sit on the floor, framing the distant Canton Tower, themselves, and the coffee in their hands together, easily producing a highly atmospheric check-in photo. It is precisely these highly photogenic photos that made this coffee shop hidden on the 41st floor of an office building quickly go viral and become a new spot that trendsetters rush to visit.
Actually, opening a cafe in a high-rise office building is nothing new. There are also many hotels and cafes near Canton Tower that focus on high-altitude views, but those places where you can properly admire the Canton Tower either require advance reservations or come with relatively high overall spending. This store, which just opened last week, belongs to the local Guangzhou chain brand store by.jpg, and its average spending is relatively affordable. More importantly, it is said that as long as you register at the office building's front desk, you can go upstairs directly to take photos. For young people bent on taking viral beautiful photos, this cost-performance ratio is simply unbeatable.
But when the elevator doors open and you are greeted by a dense crowd of tourists, efficiency-minded office workers completely lose their patience. They complain that the elevators in high-rise office buildings are already hard enough to wait for during morning and evening rush hours, and now a group of tourists competing for the elevators has appeared, invisibly lengthening their waiting time even more.
In addition, the viewing area on the 41st floor has a good view and is usually not crowded, and has always been a treasured place for tenants in the building to rest, get some air, or hold temporary meetings and work. But once the coffee shop opened, this quiet corner where office workers could slack off and relax was occupied by photo-taking check-in customers. Recently, foot traffic has surged sharply. The jpg store has only rented a corner on the 41st floor, and the seating is simply not enough. Many customers, after buying drinks and finding nowhere to sit, go to the public area on the 41st floor to chat and rest. Tenants in the building report that an office building is supposed to be a place for work, but now because of a coffee shop it has become an internet-famous check-in spot. The originally quiet and empty shared space is noisy all day long, which has already affected the normal working environment of office workers in the building.
Some tenants mentioned that after "high-altitude coffee" became popular, going to the 41st floor requires squeezing into elevators, long lines form in front of the ground-floor turnstiles, and the front desk registration area is packed with people. This overcrowded scene is completely inconsistent with the image of a high-end office building and could even leave a bad impression on visiting corporate clients.
Perhaps after receiving a large number of complaints from tenants, the property management, after negotiating with the coffee shop, has begun implementing queue ticketing. On-site customers say the property management issues only 100 tickets per day, and those who do not get a ticket cannot go upstairs to take photos. In this way, the flow of people going upstairs is restricted, and there are also fewer people queuing downstairs.
At the same time, the chairs and tables originally placed on the 41st floor for people to rest have all been removed by the property management, and the entire public area has become empty. A notice is also posted at the entrance of the coffee shop, reminding customers to eat in designated areas and not to wander around casually, so as not to disturb the office workers in the building who are grinding away at work.
Image source: Xiaohongshu
Disclaimer: Some images in this article are from the internet. For some content on the website, such as images, we will respect the original author's copyright and indicate the source. However, due to the large volume, there may be individual images or texts that have not yet been credited in time. Please understand. If the original author has any dispute, they may contact the website for handling. Once verified, we will correct it immediately. Compiled and edited by "Coffee Workshop." Please indicate the source when reposting. If there is infringement, please inform us for deletion. Thank you~!
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
