Oh my god I cannot tell you how much I love the cafe in Bradbeers, New Milton. That a small, down at heel, market town manages to sustain the oldest of old-school, Are You Being Served, type department store complete with huge haberdashery and "curtain estimator" (a phrase that sticks in my head like an earworm) is a wonderful thing, and the sense of melancholic peace that settles on me as I sit down among the purple rinses to enjoy a sausage sandwich and steel pot of tea is immense.
Yesss!Karstadt in Neukoln, how can it still exist, but it does. The top floor cafeteria , and its weird out of time, but dearly loved offerings is absolutely irresistible.
Right about the facilities nearby: the reason I used to head for nay branch of John Lewis with small children and babies. JLP customers have cornered the market in outright rude: such entitlement, such hostility.
The last department store cafe in Brighton lurked in C&H fabrics, a textile department store if that qualifies: the cafe certainly did, staffed by old hands and, the holy grail, serving at least some home made food. Of course it’s gone, but now we have a new department store cafe: just inside Ikea, serving hot dogs, buns and coffees at the rate of knots, sit if you dare, or stand outside if you don’t !
Always always visit a department store cafe when I can. Not only do they have the virtues you describe, they are generally roomy and close to loo's. I particularly love the ones in De Bijenkorf in Amsterdam (apple cake), and Ahlens in Stockholm. Fond memories of the cream cheese and walnut sandwich and the salad in the Macy's in the Lima Mall in Lima Ohio. I do miss the old style cafeteria in Selfridges though.
Oh my god I cannot tell you how much I love the cafe in Bradbeers, New Milton. That a small, down at heel, market town manages to sustain the oldest of old-school, Are You Being Served, type department store complete with huge haberdashery and "curtain estimator" (a phrase that sticks in my head like an earworm) is a wonderful thing, and the sense of melancholic peace that settles on me as I sit down among the purple rinses to enjoy a sausage sandwich and steel pot of tea is immense.
Yesss!Karstadt in Neukoln, how can it still exist, but it does. The top floor cafeteria , and its weird out of time, but dearly loved offerings is absolutely irresistible.
Right about the facilities nearby: the reason I used to head for nay branch of John Lewis with small children and babies. JLP customers have cornered the market in outright rude: such entitlement, such hostility.
The last department store cafe in Brighton lurked in C&H fabrics, a textile department store if that qualifies: the cafe certainly did, staffed by old hands and, the holy grail, serving at least some home made food. Of course it’s gone, but now we have a new department store cafe: just inside Ikea, serving hot dogs, buns and coffees at the rate of knots, sit if you dare, or stand outside if you don’t !
Always always visit a department store cafe when I can. Not only do they have the virtues you describe, they are generally roomy and close to loo's. I particularly love the ones in De Bijenkorf in Amsterdam (apple cake), and Ahlens in Stockholm. Fond memories of the cream cheese and walnut sandwich and the salad in the Macy's in the Lima Mall in Lima Ohio. I do miss the old style cafeteria in Selfridges though.