To be overly impressed with nice simple old fashioned cafes/restaurants

I love this picture and this seems like the thread for it. Dates from the early 1970s, I believe. London sandwich shop. Not quite a tearoom but a close cousin.

In the Bristol area we used to have a small chain of bakeries called Mountstevens. The larger shops had cafés where you could get a pot of tea and things like poached eggs on toast and of course an "afters" of Chelsea bun or similar.

That’s funny 😁 remember Mrs Overall 😃. I just don’t understand why all the fuss about sourdough - I think it’s awful, all hard and crunchy. Coconut macaroon anyone?

If you are ever travelling north in Scotland, go to the Green Welly services. They have about 5 flavours of soup in an old skool cafe, the mushroom is amazing, and you can even buy a frozen tub to take home!

It's a cheese sandwich with pickle/chutney spread on the cheese.

The pickle isn't a Canadian/American pickle. It's Branston's Pickle or similar. The dish is a bread roll with sliced cheese and Branston's in it.

I hear jacket potatoes are making a comeback, so you may soon be in luck.

I miss one particular cafe of my youth. They did burgers with a basic white bun and a fairly small frozen patty, not the massive burgers of now, you could get a jacket with cheese or a variety of toasties, or a teacake, bacon or sausage sarnie, milkshakes which were just chocolate milk or strawberry milk, not thick like macdonalds.

They were across from the shop I worked in as a teen and I used to go in via the back door which adjoined our shop. I barely went in the front but it was definitely the kind of cafe we are talking about here. Prices were not extortionate. Happy days.

We have 3 decent privately owned cafe's here in our town of 12,000. We also have Starbucks and Tim Hortons (Canadian). The only one I'm not crazy about going to has the noisiest coffee maker, and in summer the blender is going constantly for cold coffee drinks. So noisy that you can't carry on a conversation.

The one where I meet my friends for a Saturday afternoon coffee makes the nicest latte at a reasonable price, and the atmosphere is nice (in an old bank) but their baked goods are not top quality.

What is a cheese and pickle roll? Is it actually a pickle rolled in cheese, or is there bread involved?

Whenever I go somewhere new I look for their market because there's usually a proper cafe there. Check table cloth, fried breakfast, a pot of tea and a nice lady in a pinny.

I have found this so much in recent years
We went to Gloria recently and it was packed and very lively but the food was a bit 'meh.' it was more about being Instagram able than good food and I felt incredibly underdressed as everyone else went for it. But a week later we were out for a walk and popped into a tiny little family run Italian cafe that looked like it hadn't been updated since the 90s and had a far more tasty pasta for less than half the price.

I'm lucky to live somewhere we have a lot of cafes like this and butty shops. We have a nearby pub (independent) that does proper food too. Homemade. Fish pies, plate meat and potato pie, homemade chips, hot beef, onion and mustard sandwiches. Sunday Roasts. Does things like Halloumi Salad too. We go to this pub for all our family birthdays and events, it's brilliant.

There's a couple of independent cafes in nearby Market towns and villages that do homemade soup and sandwiches. Ploughman's lunch, etc. They all do proper coffee and loose leaf teas. Not greasy spoon at all, but will do a bacon butty etc too

I took DH to a similar sounding one recently, although not in London.

I kept expecting Count Arthur Strong to blinded his way in through the door

Check out caffsnotcafes on instagram - the guy has posted details of loads of great caffs.

In more recent times he’s widened his scope to cover different cuisines (Czech, Indian, Ethiopian) but scroll through & you’ll find a real treasure trove of caffs.

I miss a caff that does proper fried bread! 😩

Sounds fab. Do you remember the name and location?

Thank you OP for this most lovely of threads ❤️

I miss proper caffs, tea rooms with real cakes and proper pots of tea, and simple bistros.

The Regency cafe near Victoria is good, though too well known really, and I’ve read good things about Arthur’s in Hackney but don’t know if it’s still going. It’s now such a nice surprise to find a proper cafe or tea room. I can’t abide the “cakes” at Costa Fortune or Starbucks.

The best caff type meal I’ve had in years was recently; heavily pregnant and in for a check up, DH bought me beef stew and chips from the hospital cafe. It was amazing. I’d have married him all over again. Plans to revisit the hospital cafe sooner rather than later…

@soupyspoon I think yes to cheese and tomato, but I don't remember seeing piccalilli. However, in the interests of this thread I will report back - I don't buy sandwiches as I'm gf so only paid attention in a fascinated look at the retro corned beef. I regret no blue gingham overalls in any of our establishments, only the ladies in the greengrocer wear them.
House prices very reasonable, but it is a proper little town with a hardware store who sell everything you can possibly think of, bakers (who also sell filled rolls DH reminds me as well as proper cakes like lardy cake), fishmongers and a ladies shop who do sell the polyester overalls and proper nighties should you need one.

There are plenty of cafes like that on the South Coast. There are also the "Lounges" which have popped up in repurposed bank buildings etc, where you can get a mug of soup and half a sandwich pretty cheaply on a weekday lunchtime, also selling all day breakfasts and various specials.

Could it get any better!

I will take a picture tomorrow of the cheese and pickle rolls wrapped up in one of our cafes tomorrow. I think they do ham and pickle, corned beef, and peering at their fb, I think ham and beetroot which is a brave option

I would just like to find cafes which offered normal size portions of food! I don't want massive cakes, scones, muffins etc., and if I want a sandwich I just want one with plain fillings, not a pack of two stuffed to the gills.

I do like a good coffee though, but I don't live in the UK and you can get good coffee everywhere here.