Sauna-like locations, specifically something like tepidāria https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tepidarium would be my idea. Warm rooms, water and salts being offered.

We call the cafes. They can serve coffee, tea, etc, have people talk, listen to music, etc.

I’d love to see a cafe (in my area at least) with a very social “hacker” vibe. Used books on all walls, electronic parts to build with, chess sets, events and meetups. A place a kid could come with $15 bucks and find a good tutor maybe (corkboard for community postings, jobs, clubs)

I was reading about how back in the day original coffee houses were a meeting place for socialites and thinkers alike to share ideas. I’d love to see that sense of community nowadays,I feel like it’s missing in the US and would be celebrated, but maybe it’s just my nerdy idealization.

>I was reading about how back in the day original coffee houses were a meeting place for socialites and thinkers alike to share ideas.

Some still are in Europe at least. But they're closing down here as victims of modern lifestyles. We had (until the 80s) 4-5 cafes here where everybody who was everybody in culture frequented -- including different generations (20+ to 70+ year old people).

Some problems:

1) real estate prices in city center makes it impossible to keep renting for such a purpose or (if the cafe owner also owns the building) more profitable to sell the place and have it be made into a clothes shop or similar.

2) rising rents or (in other cases) deterioration of city centers, means that many intellectuals, playwrights, musicians, writers, academics, etc chose to move in other neighbours, which makes it more difficult (especially with added traffic) to frequent the same city center cafe anymore.

3) some owners just die and their kids are either clueless and turn the place into some "trendy" BS losing the clientele, or want to sell it and move on, or they simply don't have kids to pass it on, and nobody gets the legacy they've created (though sometimes new people step it who respect the original vision -- sometimes even after a few years of the shop being closed).

Yeah that makes perfect sense, it is a bit sad to hear that even Europe is losing this part of the culture. We change with the times, of course... I do agree with your point about influencers moving out of city centers and towards more affluent suburbs, it would be interesting to see if there is a market for this after all closer to these areas. Nowadays as you said though, it’s not likely the ROI would surpass that of a retail location or well established franchise sadly.

Are there any study cafes/coworking places where you live? Those usually charge for time. That’d be the primary competition, as well as possible reference business model.

restingrants, a place to sit quietly and vent

Yes, that would be great. This is a real problem for me. Especially because I don't drink coffee, either.

> replace restaurants for fasters

A "restaurant for fasters" is called "buffet": fasters need to eat a lot in between their fasts (assuming that fasts are frequent).

La Croix bar?