Cafes should have 2 lines...

[Mysterian]

...one for people like me who want sensible drinks like a cup of tea, and one for those who want freaky complicated things requiring bizarre steampunk looking machinery that take as much as 45 minutes to prepare. Take your order for a wombat milk frappy-mocha foam with cream and splash of smugness syrup and get out my way.
2 lines. One with a sign saying "Normal" above it and one saying "Can't Understand Normal Tea Stuff" overhead.
I sometimes have a hot chocolate, but without the la-di-da stuff like cream and chocolate powder. Like John Wayne or Jesus would have had.

It is filter coffee, but they will look blankly at you if you say it.

If there were no faffers in life the go-getters would have no opportunity to practise patience, and would lose the capacity altogether.

😂

Filter coffee (Vs Americano) would speed things up a lot. I think it's only Starbucks who do this and don't advertise it very well.

Separate queue for the tedious iced summer blended drink nonsense would get my vote

Your being very generous, why not go the whole hog and ask them only to serve you and kick everyone else out ?

Can we have a 3rd line for me and people like me - I just want to pay for my can of san pelligrino and sandwich picked from the fridge and don't want any hot drinks. Your weird obsession with using boiling water to leach the soluble substances out of dried leaves imported from thousands of miles away is just as incomprehensible and irritating and a waste of my time as the coffee-drinkers' preferences are to you @Mysterian so you tea drinkers only get the medium-level lane, not the fast lane.

If you’re going to Starbucks, Costa or many other places, you can use the app to click and collect. Saves loads of hassle.

There is a special place in hell for those who order a large round of drinks, and after seeing the bar tender begin pouring then add, 'Oh, and a Guinness!!'

I was in the Marks Cafe queue behind someone wanting 2 of those Rodney Reindeer hot chocolates. Takes a while.

My local Parkrun has a volunteer run cafe next to it. They open at 10. Never mind that if they opened at 9:30 they would get 600 customers each Saturday. Volunteers don't need to make profits.

I see you've been in a Subway the same time as my DH.
The idea of deciding what you want before you go in has totally passed him by.

I don't need or want assistance. Just a few seconds more than it took me before I had a stroke. Which could happen to any of the whingers. Their 'oh so perfect' selves might find their lives changed overnight too.

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.

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 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)

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

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.

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

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Sorry. Could have been clearer. I meant no chocolate powder dusted on top of the cream. Why would I want raw chocolate powder when the cooked stuff is already in the actual drink?