At least in US which is also usually pretty commercial it is a lot more palatable to propose to a business owner if you promise to come in during an extremely slow time period (e.g. Monday for a bar). But otherwise the worst for the owners is a bunch of slow people sitting a long time ordering very cheap things, taking seats from more spendy, higher turnover customers.
It also doesn’t help that my impression of Japan when I went there, was that a lot of these small businesses have room for maybe a dozen people at best.
Yeah that's a good point. I know a couple events whose scheduling is "we ask the bar what day they usually have ~0 people, and we will instead bring 30 people". Always seems a bit limited to bars, but it's something!
Restaurants can also be willing to host especially if they’re open all day and have slow times. One restaurant even put up a plaque for the group that has been meeting there at 10AM on Mondays for ten+ years.
Coffee shops are smaller these days, but for a small group it can work.
It also doesn’t help that my impression of Japan when I went there, was that a lot of these small businesses have room for maybe a dozen people at best.