Save Our Coffee Shops

Crossing the threshold between the street and a coffee shop should be a magical experience. It used to be. As little as ten years ago, even Starbucks and Costa had that home from home feel. In one step you would move from honking cars, the dull thrum of the street beat and the thick, oily smell of petroleum fumes into a cave of mystery, with low lights, big potted plants, dark leather chairs that “whoomph” when you sit in them, oh-my-God-coffee scents, and there was always good music; often so good, I would have to ask. That’s how I discovered “The Weeks”, now a firm favourite on my playlist.

It mattered little that the cost of a cuppa was comparable to a line of cocaine, because it fitted like an old sweater. I could sit, open my laptop, sip my coffee at an unhurried pace and feel the day draining from my weary bones.

My favourite was the Starbucks at the bottom of Wellfield Road. It used to be a bank. I don’t recall the actual bank, although I think it might have been Nat West. Then in the days after they started closing branches in favour of machines in the wall, online banking and algorithms, some enterprising person thought it would be an excellent idea to put a coffee shop there.

They moved in the old leather settees, dark wood tables, a sound system and enough foliage to reduce the ozone layer. It was great.

It lasted a few years, but then changed brand and became corporatized. I would not have minded so much, but so did many of the chains. Out went the comfy chairs and in came those hard plasti-leather, low-backed seats designed to make you comfortable for half an hour tops. Out went the friendly older baristas and in came kids, who could do the moves, make the coffee and engage in insincere banter.

So I moved out of the chains and into the independents. I flirted with a small chain based in Bristol, who were spreading through my territory. They were good; they made great coffee and played glorious music; they had a friendly atmosphere, liked dogs and had a bit of style about them. Then bit by bit, the music became main-stream and metaphorical comfort inhibitors appeared. They had fallen to the footfall-is-all mantra of the big corporates. The clientele changed, and it became home to people who weren’t like me at all. They were something else: louder, more brash, but they bought lots of product. I guess you have to make money to survive.

Anyway, I moved back to the indies. Which is where I enjoy my coffee now. The best one in my area is the Brynmill Coffee Shop, which mostly ticks my boxes. It has atmosphere, great coffee, wonderful sounds and comfy seats. The owners are somewhere between my age and the oldest Starbucks barista in my area, which is a plus. They “get” me.

The funny thing is, it’s always full. Getting a seat is a matter of chance and often ends with me having the obligatory, “Is anyone sitting here?” conversation and dropping my laptop alongside my seat rather than on the table. I now carry a tablet for those occasions. It makes my bag too heavy, but it saves having to carve out a space on a previously occupied table. I could drop the laptop altogether, but I prefer the utility of it to the uncertain mercies of the smaller device, so, for now, I’m still taking my chances of finding a free table.

Or at least I would be if I could go to a coffee shop, but I can’t. Covid-19 put paid to that a few weeks back. Instead, I’ve had to dust off the Krupp machine and hope I don’t run out of bags of Peets Major Dickerson’s, of which I had the good sense to buy several in February.

It is not the same though. Despite Peets producing coffee every bit as good as any coffee shop, it can’t give me the ambience of a great shop. Which is what I miss most about this current stay-at-home regimen.

It’s not any one part of the experience, it’s the whole thing. I like the transition from the street to the cave, the hum of the shop, the music, the table trial of strength and the whoomph of the chair as I park my backside with a sense of relief.

My worry is some of these shops will go to the wall in this extended period of isolation. They might lose staff, they might fall foul of insistent landlords, and they might even lose interest. I know the government is offering financial aid to small businesses, but I suspect many will find themselves in impossible situations that will end up on the liquidator’s desk.

So, my prayer for today is; please look after the NHS workers who deserve our eternal gratitude, proper kit and massive pay rises, remember the IT guys who are keeping the whole thing running, spare a thought for all the workers throughout the land who risk it all while we stay at home, and when this is all over, save our coffee shops.