Now I know that back in the day, St Arbuck had a vision for creating 'atmosphere' rather than a place where you can get good coffee. In Seattle, it was all about selling the sizzle, not the steak, or whatever the coffee-based equivalent might be. I'm not a coffee-drinker; I have little idea. Though they tell me (and they do love to tell me) that the coffee here is... well, not very good. The tea's alright.
What's intrigued me here, among this curious collection of young people in ripped jeans, is that for some reason, the person in charge of decor has positioned four massive hessian sacks... above the door to the toilets.
I think we're supposed to believe that they contain an abundance of freshly harvested coffee beans from places like Guatemala (sacks 1 and 2) and Nicaragua (3 and 4).
I don't believe it.
For one thing, Sack 4 has a hole in it. It ought to be cascading 'Fair Trade CecoCafen Product of Nicaragua' all over the high chairs and the cold tiled floor like a kind of coffee-bean waterfall.
For another, the deftly positioned sacks are bulging in all the wrong places for sacks full of beans. And anyway, above the toilets? Really? Was St Arbuck a keen practical joker?
Of course, I blame the TV show 'Friends' for all of this. For ten years, those six carefully drawn twenty-somethings persuaded us that this is exactly the kind of place to hang out - Central Perk for the masses, where the sofa is always free and there's a wise-crack or a 'hilarious' situation just waiting to happen.
Deep in our subconscious I think a lot of us of a particular generation wanted that, and lapped it up when popular coffee chains did everything they could to recreate it for us.
Anyway, Rory's arrived. He's getting coffee. I'm okay with tea.
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