Is a restaurant a public space? The person I'm meeting with brought me here for this specific reason. He says that cafes and restaurants can be public spaces even though they're privately owned, because sometimes all you need to do is buy a cup of coffee and you can stay there as long as you like. He once owned a café like this, and says it functioned as a meeting space.
He says there are fewer places like this now, and that now you feel like you're being rude if you just order a coffee and stay for a long time. It's hard to tell if it's the restaurants that have changed, or whether it's us: we just know that ordering a coffee and staying for a long time is socially unacceptable and so we don't even bother to try.