Cafes are no longer pleasant experiences

I actually can remember several quiet, clean and relaxing cafes with good food, but every single one styled themselves as tearooms. Not cafes, not coffee shops, not street kitchens - tearooms.

I think they managed to be quiet by limiting the hard surfaces that sound just bounces off, but instead had soft surfaces to absorb sound. Fully upholstered seats, and tablecloths. Carpets! Potplants. No music, just the soft murmer of conversations.

These would now be considered very old-fashioned - all of them closed at least two decades ago.

The current fashion around here is either Scandi (bare wooden furniture), Industrial (exposed brick and scaffolding shelves) or Bohemian (old pews and wooden shelves). No soft surfaces, so lots of bouncing sounds.

I feel very fortunate with the range of local cafes here, plenty of good ones and just a few mingers.

That’s not unique to the UK. I fondly remember a time in Paris when I settled myself into a corner with a book, a coffee and a pan au chocolat and after 15 minutes the waiter practically threw me out of the window as I’d apparently lingered too long and they wanted the table 😂

You are not wrong. My own personal hate, being chucked out after an hour and 15 minutes because ‘your time is up’ 😣

Haha - yes of course I was! The takeaway coffee is pretty good and very reasonably priced.

I'm in Glastonbury tomorrow for the big Saturday market and I'll be back in there again.

Do you think that's why so many people go to Greggs now? Obviously it doesn't compare to a French cafe but I've found that their flat white is very good.

I hate cafes in this country with a passion. Too much time spent abroad, a table in the sun with an espresso and a fag,and perhaps a hot pastry. Miserable places in the UK, grotty,overpriced with generally awful coffee.

I go to a lovely, but small, independent, and a nice cafe in a local garden centre. Both have started allowing dogs. One woman brings a great beast into the GC, (think performance parenting for dogs). There used to be a separate doggy area, it’s now been incorporated into the main bit. We weren’t impressed with it cleaning it’s bits at the next table! Really put me off my scone.

No loud music, thank goodness, and the clientele in both seem reasonably civilised, but do dogs need to go everywhere with their owners? My family have dogs, DD has brought her small pooch to the GC when it had a separate bit, which I think is fine. None of them take their animals to cafes unless there is a separate area or outside seating.

I can help with one of the problems! 😇 (😆). The wobbly tables -- and while we're on the topic, why? why do all cafe tables always wobble??

Push the table from side to side until you figure out which leg could use some support. Fold up one or more paper napkins from the table and shove it under that leg. Presto. No more wobble . 🎉

Toddlers?!

Jesus.

I went to one the other day, it is a cafe on a suburban lake walk so nothing else really around. I ordered cheese on toast as even though it wasn’t cheap, it was described nicely on the menu- delicious mature cheese on fresh sourdough or something like that.

You can see everything in there as the till and kitchen is all the same space, and the only table available was right in front of that.

i watched the lady toast one bit of bread from a supermarket pack, slap on a cheap cheese slice (not the orange plastic ones but the mild square type things) and then microwave it. It arrived on a plate no garnish or anything, just a molten hot microwaved bit of cheesy bread, and a small slice as well.

I’m afraid I sent it away and asked for my £4.90 back. She was not happy at all so I probably won’t go back in there now 😬

Its not so much the price, but the quality and experience has diminished so much it just makes for a resentful experience now.

M&S cafes are grim these days

sounds ageist to me, I would tend to think that it is selfish inconsiderate people in general who bellow into their phones. I was on the bus today and there were some people who happened to be young and had were watching a video at full volume on a phone accompanied by much screeching and yelling . More to do with their lack of consideration for others than their age and I just thought they were rude and annoying people rather than rude and annoying young people

We go to various cafes 4 or 5 times a week. I have very rarely been bothered by people on a laptop, and have NEVER had a dirty look off anyone who has been having an online team meeting.
That includes places like Costa.

They are. We go to a cafe regularly where there are 2 staff and there's a constant queue. I can see them eyeing the tables as they really know they need clearing, but the customers can be arsey if one of them leaves the counter. I help them out by moving some stuff onto one table, but ultimately they simply can't do it all.

Customers don't like it if they have to wait to be served or if there's no cleared tables. Adding staff increases prices, and they obviously don't like that either. The staff have no control over any of this, but are the ones who take all the flak.

And then there's those who hate dogs or insist on dogs, have children or hate children, have bat ears or yearn for the days of instant coffee.....

Cafés are screwed really 🤷🏻

I find small independent ones a bit 'entitled' to be honest.

Sky high prices, average ingredients and too many passive aggressive notices.

Too many people open them more as a hobby rather than a business, the opening times aren't long enough ( opening at 8, closing shortly after lunch) , and rarely open for any length of time at weekends.

I visit M&S cafe a couple of times per week. Never experienced what you’ve mentioned tbh.
Starbucks on the other hand can be very much like that. If it is, I just order my coffee to go. The dogs don’t bother me at all, but noise levels do.

There are keyboard warriors in the cafes your frequent?

Sitting on their lap tops all day in the cafe
Having loud teams meetings and shooting people dirty looks for daring to talk when they are on their oh so important meeting I would guess

A Handy List of Things OP Doesn't Like
Noise
Older people making noise
The noise people make when talking to older people
Dogs
Toddlers
Parenting of toddlers
Parents on phones
The price margin on jacket potatoes
The price of fish and chips
The silver thing on fish and chips
Buses
Trains
Quiet carriages on trains
Staff headsets
Keyboard warriors
Staff attitudes
Small portions
Cheap ingredients
Wobbly tables
Dirty tables
Poor toilet hygiene
Bright advertising things
Noise of keys being pressed
Being rushed
People in supermarkets talking about fish
People who don't talk about fish before leaving home
Concerts
Dogs who turn up with people who sit down.

It's like the list of Sybil Fawlty's mother's morbid fears.

Same. I've completely stopped going to cafes and getting takeaways. I just don't enjoy either anymore. Both are overpriced and crap quality.

Not my experience in Glasgow, love the cafes here, amazing choice

I went to a lovely Patisserie Valerie in Fenwicks in York the other day. Had a lovely pot of tea and a croque monsieur, and it was lovely and calm and quiet and pleasant.

We use independents and if they are not places to 'enjoy' your coffee or meal we don't go back. Make shift offices and we don't go in, creches where a coffee is nursed same, service with a snarl and we don't return. You pay for ambience and food/ service, not chaos.

well of course its a money issue. Better stuff costs more.