For years people have been talking about how a European-like café society would be a good thing to change the English drinking culture.
Perhaps. But have you noticed just how many bars, coffee shops, and restaurants are already sticking tables and chairs outside ? Which is all very well, except when they don’t use their own property but start blocking the public thorough-fair.
Now I don’t object to tables and chairs outside – I’m very partial to sitting down in a shady spot outside with a good book and watching the world walk past; if that shady spot happens to have waitress service with endless refills of coffee, so much the better. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to do this.
And the wrong way is to put the tables and chairs right outside the shop door and so force pedestrians walking past to make a detour. This is annoying enough on it’s own, but gets a whole lot more annoying when you are forced into the street and dodge the traffic, or forced into the centre of a pedestrian precinct out of the shelter of the shops – and so get drenched.
Do it properly, or not at all!