The difference is that all it takes is one person from a group to say they want a real drink and then the whole group goes somewhere that caters to everyone. If everywhere sells AF beer then why limit yourselves to somewhere that only sells AF beer?
The business model of a coffee shop requires a huge amount of takeaways. I don't think they could survive financially if they limited it to the number of seats they had because people wouldn't drink coffee after coffee for several hours and I don't think they would alcohol free beer either. I know when I'm driving and not drinking but out with friends that are I don't have a drink every round.
*I've just read the article properly and it says the pub sells regular beer but has a wider range of non-alcoholic beers than most which means it's just a regular pub. So yes, that will work fine because they cater for everyone but I would say that it is not particularly special or news-worthy because lots of pubs have a wide selection of AF beers these days. Presume it's some sort of paid ad disguised as a news story. The very end of the article mentions a few AF only pubs that lasted no time at all.
