horizon wrote:I want to go back to the OP. Basically Costa and the others do have a well packaged formula that gets it right; open on Sundays, comfy chairs, sit as long as you like, good drinks, choice of snacks, good locations etc. You cannot help but frequent them as they are placed strategically in your face - they are planned that way. And all the others - MacDonalds, Travelodge, Shell etc - also have well packaged formulas: that's how they are replicated successfully from town to town around the world. The problem for touring cyclists is that we want the real thing - we want what Lavenham or Ludlow has to offer, not the same experience from Los Angeles everytime, everywhere. A cyclist over the age of say 40 will have a reasonable memory of all sorts of places, companies, shops etc. But a young person will now be hemmed in by Orange, Microsoft, Tesco, KFC, H&M etc etc wherever they go or whatever they do (I'm trying to remember whether Malaga airport differed in any way from Gatwick...) I choose not to go to Costa now, but it won't be long before there is no choice. But that will be our choice.
But as i said there is no choice in Frodsham the tea shoppe does not and as far as I am aware has never been open on a Sunday, I alwasy felt this was an oversight, that no one had thought to open a tea shoppe on Sundays. My experience of Costa is that they are filling a gap, I would gladly have gone to a tea shoppe had there been a choice. The fact that the place was busy, lively and buzzing shows they are filling a need within the town.
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