Cafés are ‘the new restaurants’

“They’re cheaper. They’re more fun. They’re closer to home. They have better coffee. More interesting people go there. Give me a good café over a restaurant every time,” says the piece, listing plenty more reasons why it thinks cafés are superior—including their flexibility and their rewards for regular customers. “You can go back a café more often… They want you back and they reward your loyalty."

It also likes the versatility of cafés over the formal, rigid nature of some top-end restaurants. “There’s no formality, no degustation. Cafés are flexible. They are spaces in which you can do what you like." A good café is also more likely to have a sense of individuality and community, it adds—and the food is often better too.

In the interests of fairness, the piece also points out some of the disadvantages of cafés over restaurants, including customers who linger or talk on their mobile phones. But cafés are best, it concludes. “We need cafés as our meeting places, our ‘pubs’, our common rooms, our village squares".

For the full story, see Café Love: why cafés are the new restaurants.