Coffee Break

Me and the Boy are currently without an affiliation and loyalty to a coffee shop.

I know many may feel this to be, ultimately, a sign of recklessness.

In our modern society it is considered necessary to be brand loyal to at least one supermarket chain, petrol company, bank (although less so given their naughtiness over recent years), insurer, fast food restaurant and retail park (non-food) and of course one of the High Street emporiums of coffee and ancillary items.

The faithfulness of individuals to such places of institutional status is reinforced by typically some form of loyalty card scheme giving money off future transactions or something free on a regular basis. It is not unusual to be behind a shopper or customer in the checkout queue who is sifting through a mass of paperwork in their purse or wallet seeking out that £10 off a previous £40 shop voucher or frantically trying to remember how much is left on one of those pre-paid gift cards which were so remorselessly marketed in the run-up to last Christmas. I recall one of the largest food retailers offering the incentive of 5p off a litre of fuel at their on-site petrol station to those purchasing £100 of gift vouchers in store.

The presentation to family of such tokens of the season certainly saves pounds in the cost of wrapping up notwithstanding premium space under the Christmas Tree.

I have never been obsessed with brand loyalty apart from in the departments of Yeast Extract spreads and Sherbert based confectionery.

I am therefore to be feared as a bit of a maverick, loner, weirdo and shopping tart by those who would wish to categorise me in order to receive the reams of direct marketing literature through the letterbox that follows those registered to one loyalty scheme or another.

So, Me and The Boy in our current status of 'without coffee shop' are engaged in a beauty parade with such companies to decide where to place our perceived, valued custom.

We have done a bit of preliminary reconnoitring of the competition following the closure of our usual outlet of the St Arbucks chain.

It came as a shock to us nearly as much as it did to the employees whom we numbered amongst our casual acquaintances in the retail sector.

It appears that the rent was being hiked up by the landlord and the performance of the coffee shop had not ever reached projected levels. This latter issue was not down to us as our regular weekly spend topped out at around £8.25 for two latte's ( One tall, one grande), a wedge of carrot cake, a rocky road slice, something else fancy in square shape and two gold foil wrapped chocolate coins.

The rent increase was the story spun to the staff and to be relayed to the customers with the emphasis on blaming the landlord. In the eyes of our friends on the other side of the counter, the brave Barista's, we knew that as their employer had been named and shamed in terms of the pitiful amount they had been paying in tax they were taking revenge and making a few hundred people redundant as a retaliatory action of the utmost cynicism and petty mindedness. 

What options are open to Me and The Boy?

Well, for the general impression that every third premises in the High Street sells coffee after Charity Shops and Pound Stores we feel that there is actually a poor choice. Costa are a bit brash and I am aware that they are a bit fast and loose where Planning Permissions are involved. Café Nero, if you squint up at the sign reads Café Nerd so that is a non starter for us- too obvious. Pret a Manger have not yet ventured as far north east as our town and may feel it necessary to change their name which sounds ugly in a strong regional accent.

There are a few small Independent coffee shops but they do not inspire confidence of lasting the course and the owner/proprietor can be a bit full on in asking what we think of the cakes and buns which he made himself in the early hours when his eczema permitted.

There are some strange 'pop-up' coffee outlets such as those found in the back of the B&Q Warehouse, amongst the bookshelves of Waterstones and in garden centres but they can be i) a bit breezy ii) a bit too public like a feeding enclosure at the zoo iii)always full.

I have even tried out the vending machines branded by the main Chains which sit quietly in the petrol kiosk shops but have still yet to formulate an opinion on that provenance of the beverage from such a source.

So, we are still in limbo.

Until a firm decision is made we feel that there is still a lot of legwork and research to be done. You may see us parked up near a coffee shop with a flask of home poured Nescafe doing our homework.

In the interim the only thing that we will be pouring is over our spreadsheets listing the main criteria which are applied to each and every outlet that we have on our current not-so-shortlist.

Ambience, car parking arrangements, a safe place to lock up our mountain bikes, general accessibility, seating and interesting views, potential for people watching, range of patisserie goods, cleanliness and presentability of staff, demographic of other customers, nice toilets, type of canned music, absence of a craft fair display or live folk music, range of seasonal gifts and importantly, ratio of tax paid to turnover.

Oh, and I nearly forgot. What is their coffee like?