I guess cafes and coffee took off from people buying into that whole era of French existentialist culture. It was the last time you had that leisured, dole culture of people hanging round talking.
Earlier in the 50s the cafe was pre-eminent. Soho and the start of pop and all that. But it all devolved to pubs culturally there was a moment of division there. You used to get science fiction writers like Michael Moorcock and JG Ballard meeting in these select pubs and discussing imaginative writing and Sci Fi.
If those days come back it'll be a pastiche, a parody, with people pretending to read Colin Wilson. But now the whole culture has speeded up so that people just queue to get takeaways. And it's the death of cafes. Who's going to spend days hanging out at cafes? It's gone."
