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Coffee Chains Are Charmless, Grubby Hell Holes

by Rebecca Lomax
11 February 2014 18 Comments

Don't believe the dream 'Friends' sold you, ten a penny coffee chains aren't places of warmth, friendship and joy, they're crap.

Café culture has passed me by. I should love it. Growing up watching ‘Friends’, I wanted to be sat in ‘Central Perk’ with Ross and Rachel, laughing politely at another one of Chandler’s one liners while an adoring audience guffawed at my every utterance.  Instead, I walk past these numerous, glass fronted, soulless, coffee shop chains and question the sanity of the customers inside quaffing fair trade coffee, while pretending they’re too sophisticated to make their own beverage at home and stick it in a thermos.

Step into any one of these hell holes and the thin veneer of sophistication quickly drops as you realise you’re never sat less than five feet away from the toilet and the witty banter you’re desperately trying to engage in is being drowned out by the pneumatic drill they apparently use as a milk frother.  How can you relax in a place that almost requires the use of protective ear wear?

The only reason you’ve crossed the threshold of the premises is the tempting allure of the comfy sofas you’ve seen through the window as you traipse past with double your own body weight in shopping bags. Of course, what you don’t know is that they have a sum total of three sofas, all occupied by smug bookish types who have appeared to have formed a synthesis with their chosen armchair that not even a weighty crowbar could separate.

The endless amounts of caffeine and high calorie snacks sees you gaining a stone and has you arriving at the shop ashen faced and shaking from withdrawals in need of your next fix

Once inside, it’s too late to save yourself.  The aroma of freshly ground coffee has gained control of your synapses, refusing to allow your feet to carry you safely to the nearest exit.  Waiting to be served you find yourself staring in utter bewilderment at the menu, littered with enough foreign words to look sophisticated, yet making you a laughing stock the first time you attempt to say ‘macchiato’.

Order placed, you will then sit reeling from the fact the barista (I’ll explain those in a moment) has taken almost a days wages from you and now find yourself parked in the most uncomfortable seat known to man.  At this point it’s time to kid yourself that you’re relaxing in this pit of confusion and despair, when really you’re about to ingest enough sugar and caffeine to ensure that relaxation is now put on permanent hold until you slip into the inevitable diabetic coma from one too many slices of millionaire shortbread.

It’s helpful to assume at this point that barista’s are trained for this type of medical emergency or your soaring heart rate from the triple espresso could bring on a panic attack.  Even the use of the Italian name for bartender “barista” has a touch of upscale aspiration to it.  Your can almost convince yourself that it’s an actual barrister serving you coffee. “THAT’S how sophisticated I am. A trained legal professional has taken time away from ensuring justice is upheld to serve me coffee and cake.”  This would at least go some way to explaining the prices.

After all this you would think that once you’ve experienced this untenable horror you’d vow never to return. But no, the barista has one final trick up their sleeve. Clearly recruited for the purpose, ALL coffee shop staff MUST be alluring yet ultimately unattainable.  This ensures you return time and time again for more of the same in order to stalk attract the attention of your lust object.  This in itself is fruitless as the endless amounts of caffeine and high calorie snacks sees you gaining a stone and has you arriving at the shop ashen faced and shaking from withdrawals in need of your next fix. Attractive.

So thanks ‘Friends’ for bringing us this hellish ‘café culture’.  Having a coffee bears no resemblance to those images you’ve systematically peddled us over the last fifteen years. You made us dream of a place with comfort, friends, warmth and joy. Instead we got noisy, cramped, slightly grubby coffee shops with not even a glimpse of humanity.

Next time someone asks you out for coffee, do the right thing and tell them to fuck off.  They’ll thank you in the end.

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image descriptionCOMMENTS

terry 5:24 pm, 3-Mar-2011

always order a take out at starbucks ists cheaper, drink it inside

eliminatorjr 10:55 pm, 3-Mar-2011

I have a really good independent coffe place near me. great coffee, great bloke there, but i wouldn't sit inside. i mean, it's not a pub is it? The worst thing about big coffee chains is that they always have a card to collect stamps on or something to get a free one. once you have one stamp you feel that you must keep collecting to get your moneys worth and reach that magical free coffee day. Anyway, i'm not sure that caffeine is designed to relax you...

Geoff Capes 2:10 pm, 4-Mar-2011

Coffee is bent

Cattattack 7:04 pm, 4-Mar-2011

I arranged my exit interview from my last job in a Starbucks. I knew I'd never want to go back there. I've also never before been in a coffee shop where a member of staff has to key in a door code to let customers use the loo! Tight.

fatty boom boom. 5:59 pm, 11-Mar-2011

I never thought about it like that? After reading this and never going in cofee shops anyway I think I'll stick to KFC gravy.

JOSEPH BANKS 7:48 am, 29-Nov-2011

LIFE STARTS AT NEROS AND THEREAFTER,, GOES DOWN HILL UNTIL MY NEXY VISIT.

carlos fandango 7:27 pm, 10-Dec-2011

blimey. you like to moan. why bother going into a coffee house at all? i work as one of these baristas...not a title chosen by myself, but it works better than coffee man. you don't need to be fluent in italian when you come into my shop - i will gladly make my customers feel at ease and assist in educating them so that they leave with a smile on their face. sounds like you could do with a smile on your face. next time you're on ecclesall road, sheffield, give us a bell. on a separate note (in reference to the above post) some coffee shops do need a key or a code for the toilets because street urchins and drug abusers come in from the streets to use them as a public loo. if you're paying good money for coffee, would you like to find poo-smeared walls and needles, or a code on the door to prevent such goings on? i'd have a code (because believe me, i've experienced the latter and it's not pretty)

ChristosG 2:29 pm, 14-Mar-2012

Well said Carlos!!! The English love to moan...let's not forget that coffee coulture has only been going for about 10 years in this country and apart the big chains there are some amazing coffee shops...I love coffee!!!

Uncle Leo 3:14 pm, 14-Mar-2012

yeah, but if she writes down all the nice boring things about a coffee shop, its not very funny, is it?

Andy 3:23 pm, 14-Mar-2012

We only need fucking "coffee culture" because our traditional "pub culture" has been taxed and legislated out of existence.

Richard 4:09 pm, 14-Mar-2012

I kinda agree, I like coffee in itself but you get various posers along with the culture that make my blood boil. Give me a drunk show off falling of a pub table any day of the week, preferably every day of the week.

Dave lee 5:29 pm, 14-Mar-2012

I never thought I'd find myself agreeing with Geoff Capes but coffee is, indeed, bent.

Oh, Reginald! 5:36 pm, 14-Mar-2012

can't stand coffee/cafe culture - its a load of pretentious wank; the coffee isnt great anyway and, like you say, we're served by the grandiose "Barista" - a jumped up title for a waiter or as Carlos says 'coffee guy/dude/wench'. Not to mention the ridiculous names for small, medium, large. I'm 100% with you that these places are uncomfortable places full of Apple cunts. Waiting for a coffee in one of these places is like when you really need a shit but dont know what to do about it, plus it seems everyone is always in the way somehow! Independents - a touch of character; thats what makes a nice cafe, never a chain

Electroartist 10:33 am, 15-Mar-2012

Coffee culture is dull. Wanking off over coffee quality and listening to people moaning about their coffee not being as good as they had it Italy just reminds me that ones own cultural one upmanship reeks more than the often grimey cafes this liquid is consumed in.

Kane 2:42 pm, 16-Mar-2012

Those sofas - and the smug cunts who seem to live in Starbucks and think they own them. I was in SB the other week, a woman with a bag and a laptop was lying across a sofa. Asked her to move up so I could sit down and she reacted as if I had just stuck my cock in her coffee.. I have nothing against SB or any other chain, but the people that frequent them and seem to spend half their day drinking overpriced coffee and using free wifi are, in the most part, complete tools.

Bob - Not the one who previously posted. 5:27 pm, 16-Mar-2012

Coffee shop? Fuck that - anyone fancy a pint?

Jock Strap 12:33 pm, 11-Feb-2014

Oh, Reginald! That is a beautiful post! You took the words right out of my mouth, i salute you.

Bri 4:17 pm, 15-Feb-2014

I can agree that a lot of them are as comfortable as a motorway service station. It amuses me that a coffee has now become a £4 / 1,000 calorie snack. I often stand in the queue wishing excrutiating deaths on twats ordering frappawappcuntichinos .

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