Authors’ Blogs
Cafe cafes or shop cafes?
A work-shy layabout’s musings
You might think the life of a work-shy layabout is easy. Think again. You see, when it comes to whiling away an afternoon with a beverage to fuel your creativity (pot of earl grey, no milk, thanks), a challenge appears on the gingham table cloth horizon.
Do you go ‘pure cafe’, or one bolted onto a shop?
The thoroughbred may look the favourite here. Wider choice, regular staff, it’s what they do.
But the shop cafe - particularly a book shop cafe - brings its own special rewards. For starters, it’s easier to justify one pot of tea earning you an afternoon of table- occupation when that’s not their main source of income.
And the bookshop cafe has its own special charms. Because if you’re reading this, I just know you and your friends worked it all out one very late night. The bookshop you’d open, with a cafe, maybe a corner for crafts. Daryl the top choice for running the kitchen. Nickie front of house. And you, providing advice on book and beverage to bewildered customers.
So to sum up, for the best way to live the dream, you stick to proper cafes. Because I want to keep the bookshop ones all to myself.
The Work-Shy Layabout is one of the authors at Thumbnail Books (see if you can guess which one?) who has a great deal of useless advice to impart on the subject of getting away with doing as little as possible while enjoying the life of an independent writer. His views are not to be considered reliable financial, medical or spiritual advice.