Dear cafe´

Cafe’s are like theatre.A scene is set. The waiters are the actors. The customers, ordering, eating, coming and going, are the audience. The furniture and decor are the props. The coffee machine, the soundtrack. 

The methodical, rhythmical, regularity of the barista’s movements helps you subconsciously predict the number of beats till you get your coffee. 

You feel the owner’s presence. They set the temperature of the space, the happiness of the staff, and the ease felt in the customer. Like a set designer, they’re vision is on the walls. They’ve made a connection between the images/artworks they put on their walls, their ‘audience’, and the intention they have for the space.

Cafe’s transport us from domestic duties. Immersed in the buzz, one’s mind becomes a liminal ecosystem - neither here, nor there, with space to think, dream, and remember. 

But often, the theatrical ‘fourth wall’ of a cafe is breaks - 

The owner is on the phone making orders with suppliers i.e. using it as his office. 

Staff socialise past a minute or two or their children are running around the cafe. 

The rhythm of the space is off… there’s no clues to help you predict when your coffee is going to arrive. When it does arrive, it’s from another time vortex unbeknownst to the customer.

Floors and ceilings clatter with the chatter. 

Slamming doors and breezy doorways make for a leaky, creaky space rather than a cosy container. Even if the cafe is buzzing and noise levels are high, if there is a sense of a container, of the cafe being a “stage” with the customer co-creating the performance, a satisfying experience can be found.

But when the fourth wall is broken there is seemingly no difference between being in the cafe and outside with the rest of the world, the rest of their day. 

Like theatre, Hospitality is capital-H hard work. I worked in cafes and hotels and bars for seven years in my twenties. People are rude, messy, smelly, entitled and by the end of your shift you smell like food and your feet resemble a painful pile of mush. What I don’t want to be reminded of stepping into a cafe. 

So dear, hard working cafe owners, in addition to my description above, here’s what would help set the stage and restore the theatre! 

Lovely light, moody or sunny.

Plants and material artworks buffering the reverb of concrete floors and walls. 

Chair legs fitted with rubber dampeners if the ceiling is high and sound bouncy. 

Eye contact from the staff and acknowledgement of my payment. 

Pride filling the space - it goes a long way to feeling calm and at ease if you know the owner and staff want you there.

Here’s to the escape of the theatre - to the third space!

Till next week,

Rachel