A discussion which seems to have started at Crooked Timber, based on an article in the NY Review of Books about "the centrality of coffee as a metaphor (or maybe synecdoche) for civilisation" has meandered over to City Comforts and seems to be developing into a discussion about 'third places' - coffee shops etc as a focus for community /civic life on the Mediterranean model. My comment at City Comforts was thus:
Any resemblance between Starbucks (at least in its UK manifestation) and a typical French/Italian/Spanish cafe is purely accidental. Starbucks is a designed product just as much as McDonald and Burger King. That doesn't mean there is anything wrong with them - apart from the price of a coffee. They are just not the sort of cafe I look for when I'm in Europe. At least in part that is because the European cafes (actually I suspect Mediterranean) mix coffee/soft drinks with alcohol sales and usually with some food - not just danish but sandwiches etc without any expectation that you will choose one over another - so a party may have a group of people some with alcohol, some with wine/beer, some eating, some not.
