Why We’re Still Obsessed With Coffee Shops

There are some things we can apparently do from absolutely anywhere these days.

Work? We can do it from the sofa.

Shop? We can shop in bed.

Order dinner? We can do it on the train home.

And yet, despite having the ability to have practically everything delivered directly to our front door, we still seem to have a rather enduring love affair with coffee shops.

You only have to wander past your local cafe on a weekday morning to see it. There’s the person tapping away furiously on a laptop, the friends who have been chatting over one coffee for approximately three hours, the parent attempting to drink a flat white before it goes cold and the person who has come in purely because they needed an excuse to leave the house.

So, what is it about coffee shops that keeps us coming back?

It’s about more than the coffee

Don’t get me wrong, the coffee is fairly important.

But if it were just about caffeine, we could all save ourselves a small fortune and make it at home.

The appeal of a coffee shop is often the experience that comes with it. It gives you somewhere to go that isn’t your house and isn’t your workplace, a little change of scenery that can make even a fairly ordinary Tuesday feel slightly more exciting.

For those of us who work from home, this can be particularly appealing. Sometimes staring at the same four walls for eight hours straight isn’t exactly conducive to creativity. Moving your laptop to a cafe, ordering something delicious and pretending that the background noise is helping you concentrate can feel remarkably productive.

Even if you spend the first 20 minutes scrolling through your emails and listening to someone at the next table discuss their holiday.

Your local cafe can be a little community hub

There’s also something brilliantly social about a good coffee shop.

Unlike a restaurant, where you’re usually there for a meal, or a bar, where the evening has a slightly different agenda, cafes sit somewhere in the middle. You can pop in alone, meet a friend, work for an hour or simply sit with a coffee and watch the world go by.

And because people tend to return to the same places, familiar faces inevitably start appearing.

You might know the barista who remembers your order. You might bump into a neighbour. You might discover that the cafe hosts book clubs, craft evenings, charity events or local markets. Suddenly, your regular coffee stop becomes part of your routine and perhaps even part of your community.

That sense of familiarity is difficult to replicate online.

Convenience certainly helps

Of course, we can’t ignore the fact that coffee shops have become incredibly convenient.

Many now make ordering ahead, collecting your drink and earning loyalty rewards ridiculously easy. There’s something deeply satisfying about walking in, grabbing your coffee and walking straight back out again without having to stand in a queue while desperately hoping nobody takes the last almond croissant.

Technology has made the whole experience quicker and easier, too. But importantly, it hasn’t completely replaced the physical experience.

Because even if your phone can order your coffee for you, it can’t quite recreate the feeling of sitting somewhere cosy with a warm mug in front of you.

Coffee has become a little bit of a hobby

There’s also a growing appetite for really good coffee.

For some people, coffee is no longer simply coffee. There are beans to consider, roasting methods to discuss and tasting notes that somehow make you question whether you’re drinking a cappuccino or attending a wine tasting.

Speciality coffee shops have tapped into this beautifully, offering more unusual blends and carefully sourced beans for people who want to know a little more about what’s in their cup.

For coffee enthusiasts, options such as Single-origin coffee drinks from particular farms in East Africa and Central America can turn the morning caffeine fix into something much more interesting.

And then, there are the wonderfully chaotic viral creations. One minute everyone is perfectly happy with a latte; the next, we’re all queuing for something involving pistachio, chocolate, foam and an ingredient we’d never heard of six months ago. Luckily, coffee culture has room for both.

We still crave places to go

Perhaps the biggest reason coffee shops remain so popular is actually a very simple one - we like having somewhere to go!

Our lives might be increasingly digital, but that doesn’t mean we want every experience to happen through a screen.

There’s a certain pleasure in putting on an outfit, heading out for a coffee and having a proper conversation with another human being. It gives structure to the day, gets us out of the house and, occasionally, provides the perfect excuse for a little people-watching.

And that’s something no delivery app can quite replace!

So while our habits might be changing, the humble coffee shop doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. If anything, it’s becoming even more useful – part office, part social space, part community hub and part excuse to buy a pastry we definitely didn’t need.

Honestly, we could all do with more of those.