Afternoon coffee with the book group ladies

My book groups are in abeyance at the moment and so one of the members of my local book group organised a get together in one of our many local cafés - Miss Pryor - which is relatively new. We all sat at the round table shown in the foreground of the picture above. As you can see it is a very pleasant and very 'of the moment' place.

I think there were ten or eleven of us. We gathered at 2.15 and did not depart until closing time at 4.00. I think one person may have had something to eat, the rest of us just had a drink. At the same time there were maybe three other smaller tables of people there - also there for a long time. One of the tables was one guy working on his laptop.

Which made me wonder how on earth such places survive. I think my iced coffee was $7.00 and it was very nice. A bit more dessert like than a coffee but it was very hot outside at the time - almost 40 degrees I believe. As an aside this is hard to remember as, at the moment, it is pouring with rain and the temperature has dropped right down to the low twenties.

I had intended to have some cake as well, but on surveying the offerings I was not tempted - some rather large cookies - I'm not a fan of cookies and a couple of rather unappetising Danish pastry kind of things. Surely, I thought, a place like this would have delicious cakes on offer to tempt us all to buying things we shouldn't eat. I would then have spent probably well over $10.00. And I know that others would have too.

Anyway doing rough sums they can only have had an income of maybe almost $200 for two hours. And I think that is probably generous. This is really not enough to sustain a business I would have thought.

Now admittedly this was the afternoon, and for all I know they have a big breakfast and lunch crowd plus some in between coffee and cake people. But still ...

It must actually be difficult for them. I mean how do you make people move on so that others can take their place? Although there was plenty of space available anyway. Now I know it is the time of year that a lot of people are away on holiday. Lots of restaurants close down in January.

I do wish them well - the service was really good, the iced coffee just lovely - but they really have to improve the cake offering. There's a lot of competition out there. You've got to differentiate yourself somehow. Now the gelateria that has opened on the Main Street is doing a roaring trade. Whether they will in the winter is another question.