A tall drip with room for billions in American GDP

As I walked into my neighborhood Tully's coffee shop - Wallingford represent - this morning to settle in for a few hours of work, I took a quick look around. The place is packed - it always is since they went to free wi-fi. 30 of my closest strangers are all cranking away on laptops, reading docs, one woman is laying out what is obviously a contract-work photography project, another is talking on a cell phone about "not wanting to lose this deal", and there are two separate job interviews going on. My business partner, not terribly surprisingly, happens to be sitting over in the corner doing some market research for one of our clients. I wandered over and made the joke that's being made all over the country these days, the irony being in the context not the language: "Another day at the office!" Then I did a little mental math: at any one time there are probably 10 people or more in the high-end coffee shops all over this country doing services, contract, or some other kind of work that doesn't require them to be in the middle of a skein of cubicles. Let's say they average $50/hour in comp for their work. That's 5 or 6 grand a day in productivity getting cranked out of just one retail coffee outlet. I'm guessing that there are north of 20,000 Tully's, Starbucks, Peet's, Zoka's, Seattle's Best, mom-and-pop cafes, and wherever else has tables and good coffee and will let you linger for a while if you want across the lower 48. Assume for sake of argument that only 25% of these places are actually located in urban centers with an abundance of the mobile, flexible, services workers who fit the remote productivity profile I've painted above. That's almost $10 billion a year in GDP getting served up along with all the caffeine and scones. Now I think I'll have a refill and get a little more work done...