I get this question a lot from restaurant owners during talks and seminars so I decided to write a short blog post here. Not all restaurants and cafes should offer this service because it may or may not have an impact on your business. It depends on two things: your target market and your over-all strategy for implementing the program.
Your Target Market
If your restaurant primarily caters to A, B, and Upper C, then this might be a good option for you. Chances are these people won’t just go to your restaurant to leech off the free Wi-Fi. You also have to take into consideration the age range of your customers. If you get mostly adults, professionals, and businessmen, then this should be a no-brainer. You might have to think a bit if your market is dominated mostly by students but again it depends from what school these kids are coming from.
It doesn’t cost much to offer Wi-Fi. All you need is a DSL connection and a wireless router. If you get the PLDT business package that’s somewhere around P3000-P5000 per month. The router can probably come with the package or you can buy one for less than P3000. In this day and age where a lot of A/B people bring laptops and internet-capable phones, having Wi-Fi can make the decision easier for them to pick your restaurant over your competitor.
In Promenade, Greenhills, I always find myself in Bizu because of their free Wi-Fi. If not Bizu, there’s also Teriyaki Boy or Peri-peri.
Having Wi-Fi will also allow you to run a lot of on-site social media promotions. I’ll discuss this in a separate entry.
Your Strategy
Your Wi-Fi doesn’t have to be 100% free. You can offer it as a value-added service. This is how Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf does it. When you have their SWIRL card, you get access to their Wi-Fi in any of their branches. To get the card, you need to pay X amount or something. There’s nothing wrong with doing this and I highly recommend that restaurants start offering this because it can really make a difference for your ARPU and volume of customers especially if you’re hitting the target market that appreciates this the most (A/B professionals and college students).
Offering Wi-Fi can also allow you to build customer loyalty and increase return sales. I can’t count how much money I’ve spent already on Bizu. To those who know me well, you guys know that Bizu is already like my second office, hahaha.
Anyway, ultimately it depends on the two factors mentioned above. If your restaurant or cafe fits the bill, then go ahead and do it. 
i hope all resto serve free wifi for all
and elec plugs too
Nice idea. However, you forgot to mention some other factors like electric bill due to air conditioning due to added heat sources, leeching off power sockets by patrons to charge their laptops and potential loss of new customers if people stay longer than they intended and crowding the place without spending more than normal.
The problem with Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf’s offering of wifi only to those who have Swirl cards is the fact that other coffee places offer free wifi. The only reason for limiting free wifi service to customers is bandwidth. :p
I was in Cebu recently, and I almost always chose to have my nightly dose of java at other coffee shops like Bo’s and Starbucks because I needed to do some stuff on my laptop.
But when I felt the urge to have good coffee, and I do mean coffee I love, I went for Coffee Bean. :p