Cafes should have 2 lines...

45 minutes to make a drink, not sure that’s likely!

In the summer DH and I had just got back to our car after a nice, long walk and there was one of those specially adapted small vans that serve coffees parked nearby. The sort where basically the whole back of the van is a coffee machine.

Anyway there appeared to be just one woman about to be served, so no long queue, so DH and I decided to go get a drink. However, not only was she having some time-consuming concoction but it soon transpired that she was there with her friend and all their combined kids who ran over once she was being served so they could then decide what they would like. Nearly all the choices seemed to involve some sort of syrup which she kept in a different part of the van.

DH muttered to me "Let's just leave it", but I thought that it would look rude and impatient because by that stage it was obvious we were in the queue. Bleeding frustrating though.

Goodness, do you have any other White Supremacist beverage heroes or is it just John Wayne? Not sure Jesus is a good bedfellow for him, although I guess he was the forgiving kind…

Separate lines definitely. And, as well as the "boutique" coffee buyer, the person in front of you who suddenly whips out a post-it note with the order for the 6 others on their team needs to queue there too.

Same with GP surgeries. One line is the young who need a 5 min chat and a quick examination, the other is the elderly with a rucksack full of medications and multiple bandages to remove.

YES! Queue queue queue queue queue. Few of us here are Americans.

I’m honestly not that fussy when it comes to coffee. Years of drinking any old coffee from a filter jug at work have apparently made me unable to tell the difference between good and bad coffee. I don’t drink much of it but as long as it isn’t instant I’ll probably drink it.

This need has already been met! https://knoops.com/uk?srsltid=AfmBOoqE6Ebglvodb5eKvk_kqjgpog_CRwLzAMeyUfbRsGIgbZg7fbs

fantastic hot chocolate but they take an absolute age about it. Each drink separately handcrafted…

I'm somewhere in the middle wanting a bog standard flat white or normal latte. Whereas the person in front of me always wants a family selection of some kind of arty farty sickly frappe something or other.
You either like coffee or you don't. I've never really understood why people feel the need to have flavourings/sweeteners. Completely spoils the coffee but each to the their own.
Unfortunately these differing opinions slows my day down.

A lot of this comes from a lack of what I call "queue behind awareness". I seem to have a knack of bigger queue in front of me and none behind, not sure why.

Anyway, if there's a queue behind I believe that all choices should be made, or questions rehearsed, and money should be mobilised ahead of getting served. A queue in front also serves a function of giving time for consideration. If there's no queue behind then that's a licence to open a conversation with the server, either asking for advice on the purchase, or otherwise.

I literally spat my tea out at the acronym for the second line. Pure genius.
I feel this in my soul. I went in for a builders tea yesterday and had to wait behind someone ordering an 'iced-decaf-oat-latte-with-extra-syrup-and-dusting-of-unicorn-farts'. By the time the 'barista' (it’s a coffee shop, not an opera house) had finished the latte art, I’d aged three years and my parking was about to expire.
Since it’s New Year’s Eve, I imagine the 'smugness syrup' is in high demand today. Everyone’s out with their 'New Year, New Me' energy, ordering green tea matchas that look like pond water.
Can we also have a third line for people who have their loyalty app ready to scan and don't spend 5 minutes digging through a Mary Poppins bag for their purse only after the total is announced?
Enjoy your John Wayne hot chocolate. No 'la-di-da' bits allowed! 😂

I have to say I do often miss Italian cafes where everyone has basically the same order. Espresso. Or maybe capuccino before mid morning. It's considered weird to order one later in the day. No faffing about with all these add ons and special orders. I saw a Youtube video once where someone timed the whole experience, from walking in the door, ordering, knocking back the espresso, paying and walking back out the door, at under two minutes. But coffee culture is very different here.

It’s generally pretty indifferent especially if it has been sitting on a hot plate for ages. That seems to be the choice we have though. Get served indifferent coffee quickly or wait ages for barista to make a half decent one.

You can also order online via their app which is good for the outlets that havn't got the touch screens yet.

The app and touch screen means the servers can prepare your food so much quicker as they're more efficient without constantly waiting to ask questions and waiting for answers.

I might go back to Subway if they have touch screens now, I can’t be doing with the 20 questions to make a sandwich.

And here we have the subject of one of my regular rants. If I am having a coffee my absolute preference would be a straightforward filter coffee poured out of a jug that they already have there ready and waiting behind the counter.

"A cup of coffee please." "Here you are, that will be....£whatever." Job done

But it is so rare these days to find anywhere that will just serve you a straightforward, honest to goodness coffee. You have to choose from a list of things where the name doesn't really convey (to me anyway) what it is and each one takes several minutes to make.

If I was going to run an establishment serving hot beverages the choice would be tea (English Breakfast of course) or coffee (filter) and that's it. I might be persuaded to do hot chocolate I suppose. But don't bother asking for fancy milks that aren't really milk because I wouldn't have any.

The Grumpy Old Woman Hot Beverage Stall.

Yes it's the most efficient way, I used to work in a bar in the mid 90's in the UK & we always did this & with John Smiths which was kind of creamy also & needed a top up.

Order screens are a game changer in Subway. I used to hate all the quick fire questions that usually I couldn't hear due to strong accents and background noise. Much better just using the touch screen and being able to customise to exactly what I want and being able to see all the options. I love touch screens!

Absolutely agree, takes 5 times longer to make the stupid coffee than a cup of tea

When you have a big dog, people expect you to do this all the time, usually so they can walk three abreast and continue nattering. Half of them don't even bother to say thanks if you do move aside for them. I now walk on the inside, with my dog beside the wall, and don't change course. If someone has a pram, a bike, a toddler, I will stop walking and hold the dog still to afford them more pavement space, but I'm not walking her in the road.

How can you have a hot chocolate drink without chocolate??

I have it on good authority that Jesus was partial to a fair-trade, oat-milk skinny mochaccino with salted caramel syrup (no chocolate on the top because he's on a diet)

This is why I don't have hot drinks when I'm out and about.
I'd go into a pub and have a beer or a soft drink.

I think you're confusing café and caff. Similar etymology, completely different establishments. There used to be - and I fondly believe there still are - caffs that don't offer coffee at all. Unfortunately those tend to be the ones that give you the tea, having put the milk in with the teabag. Which ought to be a capital offence.