so people don’t keep having to rub their junk on me

I agree with GiantFloppyCock.

I'm on option 3 because no coffee/tea is worth the wasted time and resources of leaving my house early (even if I had to commute) to wait in line for it. This is just terminally stupid to me and I am unable to understand why anyone does it as part of their daily routine.

Well, if you weren't poor, you could just go and sit in half empty cafe where trey charge €10+ per cup.

I hate getting bumped, but for me it's the noise. Can't stand a crowded space with many conversations.

so people don’t keep having to rub their junk on me

Same, bro. Now where is this coffee place, so I know where not to go? 📜✍🥸

High five for practical frugality. I'm with you there.

This, 35 Celsius grades and beyond are no joke.

lol I always think that when cars don’t want to stop for me walking. Like bro chill you’re sitting in a literal recliner rn

Wasn't that a covid thing?
With that being said, there is no way i would've waited there when i saw 3 or more cars.

Are you by any chance telling them to walk on their legs?

It’s a catch-22 though. Like, if I get out of my car for 5 minutes with it off then it just heats up to 1000 degrees. I get that the idea of quickly going in and walking out is nice, and I would honestly prefer to not have it at all (yay for just making coffee at home). However for us in incredibly hot climates it isn’t something I ever try to do. It’s 107 out today, 5 minutes with my car off turns it into like 135 on the inside. Of course all of this just adds more to emissions. Which is all of the problem….

Many coffee and fast food restaurants around where I live closed down internal seating around covid and still haven't opened the backup now due to staffing issues. Terminally stupid my ass.

This was during Covid social distancing, probably right when Starbucks was allowed to open back up.

Yes because sitting in my car jamming to my music is soooooo stupid.

It also could be that they are drive-through only. I live in a small town in the midwestern U.S. and a lot of fast-food places around here closed their lobbies during the pandemic and just never reopened them after, usually citing worker shortages.

Right, like who has the time or money to wait to buy coffee?

And it's not really a comparison. One image depicts a leisure activity, while the other a convenience activity. The choice between the two has very little to do with cars, or rather the existence of each depends on the situation determined by other factors. If you are in a walkable city where cars are not necessary, then you could stop at a restaurant. If you have an hour commute and want to enjoy a to-go cup of coffee along the way, the drive through is an obvious business decision.

So I'm not sure waht the takeaway is here, other than whoever created this comparison has a myopic, self-centered view of the world.

So much time saved too. Takes less time to make it than it ever does to wait in line.

I wish this was true, I've tried it multiple times at Starbucks and it doesn't work.

I think the majority of the staff is working on mobile/drive thru orders vs the orders that come in at the counter.

Regardless, going inside has taken me longer then joining that stupid line.

No idea. I served in drive throughs and I can tell you waiting time is shorter inside the store

Ahh but you can't ever be part of a pretentious and pointless pay it forward chain, where suburbanites of the same financial status pay roughly for someone else what they would have paid for their own drinks

It is best to just put in the order online. Then you can park, walk in, grab it, walk out and be moving before they serve a single car.

Because they clearly don't have to worry about all the extra money and time they're wasting on gas to buy commercial coffee every day. Must be nice.

Yeah, that headline asks the wrong question.

-- I look at the bottom picture and see hard chairs, hot sun, bugs, and I don’t know if there are seats but some people are stuck standing.

-- I look at the top picture and see nice cushy seats, my own music, and air conditioning.

Comfort is why people put up with these lines

First, I agree with everything you typed. BUT

Second, "a little fortress of solitude and separates me from the public" is kinda the problem we have that leads to the top part of the picture. We in the West in general and the United States in particular have lost our sense of community. My car by myself listening to what I want in solitude is AWESOME, but stopping to sit and be part of a community is probably better for me.

Yep. There's a BIG difference between "I like driving" and "We should design all our towns and cities around driving."

And the ironic thing is that designing around walking and public transportation makes driving better. You don't have to deal with nearly as much stop & go traffic if there aren't as many people on the road, and if arterial roads don't need to have intersections every few hundred feet.

Pic number one is definitely more comfortable. Because you don't have to be around so many people. You have your own private environment. Listen to an audiobook, zone out, drink some coffee, sounds perfect.

I'm socially anxious and don't really like crowds so sitting in my car is preferable. But I'd park and walk in rather than wait in a line like that.

Really I work from home and get my own coffee every day without needing pants, which is infinitely preferable to both.

Some cars have by far the most comfortable seats I've ever sat in. Nissan in particular has some amazing seats. Far better than anything Herman Miller has ever put out. There's a reason some dedicated people out there take seats out of cars and mount them on the rolly things.

That said I'm not going to idle my car for more than 5 minutes for just about anything. The people who wait 30 minutes in a drive thru line are insane.

I'm a fierce opponent of cars in inner cities and I want a revolution in individual transportation that makes us mostly move away from cars (and make cars much smaller for those who are reliant on it).
However I love driving although I hope I'll never need a car ever again for climates sake. I'd definitely rather sit in my own isolated space.

It's 43°C out here in Texas, so yes, but I would rather climate refugee my way into a nice place like the bottom picture because with the way things are going, soon 50°C is going to be the new norm out here (especially if we keep building photo one infrastructure) and 43° is already too hot. We also have lines like this for fried chicken. SNL even did a parody auto dealer commercial where the dealership is blocked off by the traffic in line for chicken.

I hope it's higher than that. I don't want to hike 3 miles to sit on a crowded sidewalk with randos under someone's house to wait 20 minutes for 2 oz of espresso probably in a cloud of cigarette smoke.

I like a cafe, but it's going to be way out of the way and no one waiting but me.

(I'm just having fun thinking about the comparison, nothing too directed at your statement as I also agree with that)

Both pictures contain the same amount of people, but there is likely three more shops around the shop in the below picture which all fit in the same space as the upper one, one of which is probably also not as crowded. Also, there are at least 30 apartments in that area as well as other shops and it has worked like that for centuries, if not a millennium

It always baffled me as accpetable that their poor servicing methods/infrastructure (drive thru) was allowed to leak on to publicly funded infrastructure and impact its usability without any reprecussions to the business or its patrons.

If your car gets 30 mpg, then you could drive 30 miles for less than $5 probably. It would be more frugal to drive and have the cheaper cost of living.

You know, it's possible to live the walkable life in Michigan.

Right?

that photo was almost definitely taken during covid, when going inside was not an option

Coffee shops also often have air-conditioned environments indoors.

One large benefit of classic coffee shop style design is building community. Presumably you go to your local coffee shop (this obviously doesn't exist in suburbia) and meet other local people there. It provides opportunity to just get to meet other people, which helps people feel more connected and less scared of each other, and also let's them rely on each other when needed. It also creates a space people can use for organization efforts. You can advertise for local mutual aid groups or political organizations or whatever else to people with likely similar interests.

Car culture (particularly in America) has destroyed most people's sense of community. You live in your space, drive wherevever you need to go in your private bubble, and never interact with people living near you. It's not good.

Shouldn't have built a city in the middle of the fucking desert.

You could still do the bottom picture inside.

Well, Arizona is not meant to be lived in. As well as Mars, for example.

I don't believe that anyone from Arizona would use Celsius.

Those coffee shops have inside space too.

They way North America cities are designed it's definitely not pleasant.

Nothing more enjoyable then a car traveling at 60kmh right beside your patio table.

[insert King of the Hill quote]

The picture on the bottom is from France. I bet they would still drink their coffee in +56 because they sit like that during winter under a bloody snowstorm.

imagine what would happen if federal dollars could only be spent on upkeep of existing highways and not to build more or expand highways, and the excess money was put into rail transit construction and protected bike lanes

Of all the responses, this is my favorite!

It's just one more block! Lol anywhere with a walkable city would have at least 2 coffee shops per km for this exact reason.

That's Europe. We have cafes at every corner.

It's literally under the house. You just walk down the stairs and drink some coffee with your friends!

Americans can never understand culture. Quality isnot convenience

Actually, no, it didn't. Unlike many children of the internet, I can learn and expand my horizons with new vantages. Many people take coffee in a variety of ways, as it appears. By illustrating this dichotomy, in the end, I could better unravel the tapestry that is coffee drinking, thereby enriching my life. Sorry if this disappoints, but as Monty Python said, "Always look on the bright side of life."

💯 Yeah, I get to sit in my own comfy chair, with ac, my own music or silence, without people coughing on me, with my doors locked if I feel like it.

That type of busyness in either picture is exceptional. If I get into a car to get somewhere, it's almost always easier AND FASTER to just stay in it.

Do I think it would be better if they were all electric? Yes.

Is coffee bad for the environment? At every step, yes.

Do I like well made espresso? Yes.

Do I want to go anywhere for a cup of coffee? No.

Do I have the equipment to make good espresso at home? No.

Do I think going without is the best form of being better for the environment? In many cases, yes.

Will I still go somewhere for a chance at a great cup of espresso? Maybe once every other month.

What is the goal of FuckCars and this sort of perspective? Seems like it should be sustainability and quality of life.

Do I think cars are the enemy? No.

Do I wish I didn't have to deal with them? Yes.

Are there any 100% sustainable, more efficient, better quality of life suggestions that are feasible out there? Not yet.

Do I think FuckCars is a whine? Generally, yes.

Do I think it's an important debate to keep open? One of the most important.

Why do I criticize it? Because it never addresses the complexity of the problem or produces any feasible solutions or steps to take. It's a cope with blanket implicit blame. We all want better.

When I started driving I was taught to leave enough space between my car and the next car that I could turn out without any other car moving (in front or behind).

If you snug up it limits your options

Could just be the pic was taken while some of the cars were moving.