Coffee shop plan

Frank, an energetic retired engineer in his 80s, has an idea for putting the roof of his small museum to use and shows Lloyd the approach he has in mind.

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Frank: Come on up.

Lloyd: This is the access?

Frank: It’s not so difficult.

Lloyd: This ladder is an antique. It’s an artifact.

Frank: My point. We’re only allowed to build a storage room for archives and artifacts on the roof.

Lloyd: Is that all?

Frank: But look at the view from up here. Great sight for a coffee shop. Recreate coffee houses as a modern place to work. Wireless and coffee.

Lloyd: But you can’t get planning approval for a coffee shop?

Frank: Not to say it can’t be done. Archiving is a foot in the door. Put in a kitchen and toilet and Bob’s your uncle.

Lloyd: And build in a new staircase.

__________

Voiceover

A major function of coffee houses, of which Edward Lloyd’s in London was one of the first in 1688, was that of being places for shipping underwriters to discuss insurance deals. Coffee houses then became, for a couple of hundred years, merely places to drink coffee and chat. But the wheel seems to have turned. Frank seems to view his rooftop as being a place where neo-nomads can, for the price of a coffee and a muffin, rent office space.

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