Stratford View column - Dealing with the mean cafes of London

FOR my regular job I have to travel to London quite often, and it was the trip I made last week that really got me thinking about the subject for this week’s column. Customer service.

The difference in attitude between front of house employees across the various UK counties is undeniable, and I often find myself thinking that our capital city has entirely given up on bothering to train people to be polite as part of their job.

Don’t get me wrong, I have occasionally had some poor customer service in Stratford, but nothing compares to London. I’m going to use my experience in two cafés as an example of how much we differ up here in our lovely Warwickshire bubble.

Last week I went into a café in Waterloo armed with a good book and the intention of a relaxing couple of coffees while I enjoyed my down time between meetings. When I walked in a woman in her 50s appeared out of nowhere, akin to the shopkeeper in Mr Benn, but with a truly sour expression and no fancy dress. “YES?” she bellowed. Rather taken aback I glanced around in case I had wandered into her living room by mistake, and this would explain how horrified she was to see me. But no, it was indeed a café open to the public.

I want to make it clear at this point that this was not a busy café, which I always think must be incredibly stressful to work in. This was less than half full. It’s extremely unlikely that this was because central London was having a quiet day, and much more likely to be because this woman looked as though she’d like to charge at her customers with a wooden mallet as soon as they dare enter the establishment.

I asked if I could have a coffee, and she nodded her head in the direction of a table which I scurried over to and sat down quickly in case I incurred further wrath purely by being a paying customer.

After about 10 minutes she appeared to take my order and I asked for an oat milk cappuccino, which got a very visible eye roll.

A further 10 minutes went by before she slammed it down in front of me.

I nervously asked for some sugar, and you would think I’d insulted her recently deceased mother by the look she gave me.

I am terribly English in that even when someone in a shop or café is rude to me I still always say, “Thank you very much”. I drank my coffee but felt so pathetically meek by this point that I couldn’t enjoy my book, so I gulped it down, ran to the counter to pay the less terrifying girl at the till, said “That was lovely, thank you” and scuttled away.

This week I was so grateful to be back in a Stratford café. My friend and I walked in and were greeted by a beaming smile, a “Hello, how are you, girls?” (we are both 46 so this needless flattery is always welcome) and a sharing of pleasantries about the lovely weather while we were shown to a table.

We ordered our coffees straight away which were delivered with a further few pleasantries and, importantly, some sugar sachets. We were so happy in there we ended up ordering some lunch and whiling away a good couple of hours.

As we left I said, “That was lovely, thank you” just like I did in London.

But this time I meant it.