Café praised after being forced to introduce new headphone rule

If you’ve spent any time in a café lately, you’ll know the struggle: you nip in for a quiet brew and a bite to eat, only to find someone nearby blasting TikTok videos, a kid’s tablet screeching theme tunes, or a full-volume FaceTime call rattling the cutlery. It’s the modern-day background noise nobody asked for.

One farm shop café in Saddleworth has found itself right in the middle of this increasingly common battle for a bit of peace.

Albion Farm Shop & Café, a family-run spot known locally for its homemade deli food and relaxed atmosphere, says it has seen a real spike in customers using phones and tablets on speaker. And after one particularly unpleasant encounter, they took the unusual decision to address the issue publicly.

Before things reached that point, staff say the weekend had already been filled with politely approaching customers and trying to keep the peace. In their words: “Throughout the weekend and particularly this morning and lunch time, we have had to continuously approach customers to ask them politely if they would be able to attach headphones to their device or turn their volume to a minimum to avoid disruption for other customers.”

It all came to a head when one customer reacted badly to a gentle request. The café explained further in its post: “This lunch time after one customer was asked extremely politely if headphones were possible, we were immediately reprimanded. Knackered and worried this was the sort of customer who would make a scene both in the cafe and on social media, we’ll be absolutely honest, we chickened out and let it be, so this continued for another 30 minutes.”

According to the post, the atmosphere only got worse: “Snipes could be heard but weren’t acknowledged, and on leaving, their child was instructed to be careful she didn’t drop her tablet on ‘that woman’.”

And as staff attempted to maintain order, things became surprisingly personal. The farm shop wrote: “A quiet reminder that there was no need to be so rude resulted in being told that we should have had a wash this morning (will own up to looking very dishevelled due to having a poorly 12 month old awake during the night) and gestures were then made through the window on leaving.”

Their takeaway from the incident was blunt: “All we can think is that someone really wanted a show down that they didn’t get.”

It’s at this point the team say they realised something had to change. They stressed that they always try to be flexible with customers and their needs, saying: “Of course we are as adaptable as we possibly can be to any additional needs or requests, but all we ask for is the same politeness and understanding in return, that we don’t just assume and we can have polite conversations to gain understanding.”

But to protect their staff and keep the café experience enjoyable for everyone, Albion Farm Shop announced a new rule: “Due to these continued issues and wanting to make it easier for both our staff and customers to navigate with no unnecessary upset on both sides, we are now asking our customers to silence their speaker phones and remain with headphones or head sets only.”

They added a clear message for anyone asked to lower their volume: “If a member of staff asks you to turn off your volume or to please use headphones, this is for the wellbeing of all our other customers so please treat them with respect or speak to them politely.”

Then, that’s where the Instagram commenters stepped in, because the reaction has been overwhelmingly supportive. Followers praised the café for saying what so many people think, but few businesses actually address. Comments called the policy ‘brilliant’, said the sense of entitlement from some customers was ‘staggering’, and insisted more public places should introduce the same rule.

Others sympathised with the staff member who was insulted, and many shared their own frustrations about loud devices in cafés, on buses, planes and trains.

"This is absolutely brilliant to see!" one comment said.

"I wish more places would adopt this approach!! People seem to think it’s acceptable & appropriate to hold conversations over speakerphone whilst in public places!! I certainly don’t want to hear people’s private conversations!! And for the customers who were rude to you, no great loss, you can do without people like that in your lovely establishment."

Someone else echoed: "Nothing worse than going out to eat and all you can hear is a child’s tablet blasting out some kids themes tune and half the time the child isn’t even watching it, not only children also adults who think it’s ok to listen to reels or tiktok videos full blast while they sit there eating."