Local coffee shop reopening as takeaway

[wedwoses]

There's been an announcement on a local FB page about the above. Most people seem supportive but a few people are stridently anti, arguing that takeaway coffee isn't essential etc. I've looked at the regulations and they seem to allow food and drink (which I presume must include coffee) to be both delivered and provided takeaway or through collection, the government even relaxed planning rules to allow this and explicitly stated that this could be a new activity by a business even if it hadn't done it before, and nowhere in the regulations does it actually use the word "essential" as a test of what is/is not permitted. AIBU to think that if this small business (definitely not a chain) wants to do this and abides by the stringent social distancing rules, then that is just as acceptable as any other food or drink business providing a takeaway service?

It’s fine.

Almost all restaurants near me have reopened for takeaway and any takeaways that shut temporarily have reopened. All distancing rules observed. Our local family run coffee shop has just reopened for takeaway with a slick set up, and the local coffee heads are very grateful! A local couple who run a mobile pizza catering biz have spent the week making kits for 2 pizzas that you hand stretch, assemble and cook at home. Being delivered today. I admire all the small indies for adapting to survive whilst giving their customers what they crave. Given what we've been told about the situations the virus is more likely to spread in, I think essential/non essential is most applicable to situations where you would come into contact with the vulnerable - medical and healthcare settings.

One cafe has a special 2m ice cream serving stick so no one has to get too close

I love this, bravo to them!

Pretty much every village pub and cafe near me is doing some form of this or deliveries and has been for weeks. Its keeping them solvent and they have a bigger connection with the surrounding community than ever before.

Having queued inside Starbucks and Costa pre lockdown, I don't see how staff can adhere to staying 2 m from each other. They're normally crossing to and fro behind each other while making coffee. Most areas behind counter are not 2 m deep.
Distancing from customers should be fine

@PaulHollywoodsSexGut it's a weird one
Because I'm Sick of cooking but something just doesn't sit right. Maybe I need a REALLY good takeaway to put my mind at ease 😂

I wouldn’t buy from there (unfortunately, as I’d love a takeaway coffee!) as the risk of droplets from staff preparing entering the coffee or landing on the equipment is too great.

But for less risk averse citizens I don’t see an issue, it’s allowed, although the staff are at risk. They should wear masks (not gloves as we now know they are worse than bare skin as washing doesn’t remove germs from them as effectively as it can from skin).

Our local Facebook was full of the takeaways aren’t essential gang - it became quite unpleasant - so I left for a while. The economy needs to keep going for all our sakes. Doing something within the rules like selling takeaway coffee is fine - good luck to them!

The thing is, some degree of risk has to become acceptable or he economy will tank and things will get really bad. So I am glad not everyone is as anxious as I am (although I have my reasons due to family being vulnerable).

I thought most food and drink places were doing this now. If people don't like it then they can choose not to use it. Can't see what the issue is

People have got to do something to tick over.

How do the vigilantes suggest they pay their bills?

Laurie I think they’d say something like “the business owners should have had savings set aside for a rainy day.” 🤦‍♀️

Haven’t they seen Bojo walking in the park with a Costa? If he can do it, anyone is allowed to, surely?

Many here have managed to do this from the start, our local pub is doing take aways, several cafes doing meals on wheels and bakeries have stayed open with social distancing and screens in their shops.

The thing is, some degree of risk has to become acceptable or he economy will tank and things will get really bad

100% this. Somebody I know hasn't let her kids over the threshold since 2 weeks before lockdown, not outdoors once. Her choice however when one of the kids questioned why a couple of kids were walking along the road with their mum during the sunny spell, she told her kid it was because the mum was "a bad mummy". As for the economy tanking, her solution to a continuation of lockdown pending the mass production of a vaccine is for the government to print more money. Yep.

More and more are doing this. I noticed the local pub is delivering food now so presumably adapting to keep customers and trade going.

We are still avoiding food/drink prepared by others but many aren’t as want a change from what they can do at home,

The ice cream and coffee shop by the beach has re-opened this week. I'm torn, I know they are not breaking the rules and they are trying to keep going, I would be really sad if they couldn't stay afloat, but equally people are flocking to it and spending a lot more time just hanging around on the beach outside it. On a sunny day the beach is every bit as busy as normal, in fact possibly busier because it's such a novelty and one of the few normal things for kids right now, and that makes me nervous.

All the local cafes and restaurants where I am have been doing this since the lockdown began. There's never been any issue with this.

We got take away coffees for the first time last weekend. It was lovely. Unfortunately it was a fair walk to get them so won't be doing it often but it was a nice treat.

Many of the small coffee shops, etc here are family run therefore I’m assuming they only need to socially distance from their customers as they live in the same house anyway!

They are trading get some income so that they can pay bills and buy food. They have had 6 weeks without an income so far and they don’t know when then end is in sight. Also stock will go off and need to be thrown away if not used.

I agree they should be allowed to stay open - okay - no-one dies without coffee, but this is

a) a business struggling to survive
and
b) a little hold on normality for many people who are otherwise feeling that their world has collapsed around them.

If all of these places are forced to remain closed, what is going o happen after this is finished? Our new normal is going to be very different anyway, I think, but we will need ways of socialising, and opportunities to just have a little bit of self-love (eg treating ourselves to a coffee every now and then).

If we stuck to REAL "essentials", I think we'd all be limited to potatoes, oats, lentils - and an egg once a week or something.

The thing is, some degree of risk has to become acceptable or he economy will tank and things will get really bad. So I am glad not everyone is as anxious as I am (although I have my reasons due to family being vulnerable).

Can I just say, it's nice to see someone owning the fact that their anxiety is their own and shouldn't necessarily determine what other people do. There's no way to set a level of risk that everyone is equally comfortable with, there's always going to be a too strict for some and not enough for others element.

I strongly support pubs and small businesses of all kinds switching to takeaways to try to survive. I’ve eaten more takeaways in the past six weeks than in the previous six years. I don’t want to end up with multinationals owning everything, and independents all being bankrupted.

Of course it’s fine. The business owners have got mortgages and rent to pay like the rest of us. My business was forcibly closed like many and I’ve had to reinvent my business (online in my case) to keep getting (some) money in.

Small businesses need to reopen as much as possible. Our local deli is doing takeaway drinks also doing a large range of nice food