I used to frequent a lot of coffee shops once. Back when I was a kid they were far less common than today, the milk bar being a preferred site for a social non-alcoholic drink. I recall my mum taking us to cafe-style shops in the 1960's, and she pointed out to me recently that we often dropped into one or the other when in Chatswood or in Sydney.

For me the whole thing really took off at university, when coffee shops blossomed pretty much everywhere, though the ones on campus were fairly basic. Esme's Room in the Morven Brown Building had plastic tables and chairs, fluorescent lights, a coffee machine, Esme, and a tray of ghastly cakes. The latter included a truly awful oversized pineapple donut.

Later when I went to church, a group of us often went off to a cafe afterwards, though we had to drive a little to find one that was open. I recall fondly The Great Little Coffee Shop at Willoughby - filtered coffee, smoky Arcoroc cups and plates,  French cakes and a kind of cool ambience. One of our group brought his guitar and sang though the evening. 

Then it was on into the Eighties and a full immersion in cafe society, well before it even existed. I fear that I may have had hipster pretensions even then, though the term would not percolate through for another thirty years. No matter where I was living, there was always a cafe of some sort to indulge my whim of a cappuccino and a slice of carrot cake while I thumbed through a copy of The Guardian Weekly. 

These days I only occasionally step into one, though they are many and varied and often very good. I make my cuppa at home. The truth about this change is fairly prosaic - I was spending too much money. But in gaining something, I lost something else.

Maybe I will take it up again, post-covid. Who knows?