Café bars that provide commercial coffee
machines are located just about everywhere these days. In fact,
it's hard to head anywhere without spotting somewhere that you can
grab a brew.
This is no bad thing, of course, but
does it matter to coffee drinkers exactly where an outlet is
located? Are café bars in certain locations more generally used
than those in other places?
With the sheer number of coffee shops around, it's hard to say, but
Allegra Strategies did recently carry out a poll of syrup and
non-syrup users to find out exactly where people choose to get
their brew.
Some 98 per cent of the former group revealed they tend to go to
chains on the high street, along with 93 per cent of the
latter.
Meanwhile, nearly half of those in each category were found to
enjoy frequenting an independent coffee shop in their
area.
By contrast, coffee outlets in places such as conference
centres, museums, airports and motorway service stations were found
to be relatively underused.
However, it's worth bearing in mind that the study was not
asking people which place they prefer to buy a hot drink.
The findings are probably a reflection of the fact that high
streets are bristling with large numbers of people day after day,
whereas activity in a museum is likely to be pretty muted in
comparison.
Even in the case of service stations, not everyone who goes
there wants to stop off for a cup of coffee. They could just be
wanting a bag of sweets, a burger or some windscreen washer fluid
before continuing with their journey.
Retail centres are clearly the
busiest places, as figures also showed that department stores are
major hotspots for coffee drinkers. In addition, Allegra Strategies
said demand for a brew was very high in people's canteens at work,
as well as in railway stations.