Coffee Shops, What Are They For?

Now, I'm not one to moan heaven knows. But why, when virtually every other shop on the High Streets and shopping centres of the UK is a Starbucks, Cafe Nero, Costa Coffee or some other similar establishment does it take forever to get a drink?

All they have to do is serve the customer tea, coffee, hot chocolate or a cold drink and of course, exorbitantly priced flapjacks. That's all they do. They have more equipment behind the counter than was used during the Moon landings. They have plenty of staff, all picked for their sparkling personalities and ready wit, whose previous job was as morale officer on the Titanic.

You enter the premises and you are faced with a queue. At the head of the Queue you see a dispirited huddle of people who already been, what is laughingly called 'served'. So if they have been served why haven't they got their drinks? Because the staff can't be bothered that's why! They've asked the customer what they want and they've taken a considerable amount of money from them and now all the customer has to do is stand and wait and wait and wait.

What are the staff doing at this time? It depends which one of these establishments you go to. My experience is that they are either arguing amongst themselves about who should do what or talking about what they did last night or what, or who, they hope to do tonight.

Why don't the 'served' customers find a seat and wait to be served at a table? Because if they did sit down that is exactly what would happen. They would wait. Their drink, if and when it did arrive would also wait, on the counter and nowhere near the customer.

When you get to the head of the queue it's no good just asking for a coffee, you have to speak in some pseudo continental coffee talk. It doesn't matter what you order, by the time you get it lukewarm and semi-congealed they all taste the same. And then there's the size to be considered, can you have large. medium or small? No it must be Grande or Macho or Mucho or Bambino or some other inane name. Of course every chain has a different name for everything, we can't have the customer feeling at ease.

Finally a member of staff deigns to make eye contact with you, you stumble through your order in pidgin Italian. this is usually met with a blank stare followed by a demand for money,...........lots of it!

When you finally get your drink you look around to find that there's nowhere to sit. Have you noticed that there is always one person who has seemingly been there since before opening time, hogging two sofas across which they spread the morning papers and sit then enthroned with not a drink in sight while watching all the paying customers stand?

Why can't it be like the coffee shop in Frasier on TV? As soon as anyone walks in they give their order to an alert member of staff who brings the order as soon as they've sat down. they also always get a table at once and it's one of three tables with good access to camera angles.

Niles Crane wouldn't put up with it so until he moves in around the corner from me I'm going to the greasy spoon.