Pret is really obviously doing the loud music thing too (and has for a couple of years at least). They lost my patronage. Not that they care: I think they had very good financials before their sale to Krispy Kreme.
[aside rant] We have a very strange cafe culture in the UK compared to continental Europe: too many chains, too expensive, poor quality, takeaway coffee. The latest insult is chains not wanting to wash cups, so now we have to bring in re-usable cups. At least they're offering discounts, for now.
Heh, I was referring to separate things and connected them in a tin-foil-hat way: the quite recent campaign against paper cups which encourages people to buy re-usable travel mugs and my experience with various chains serving paper cups even when sitting in (possibly fazing out normal cups). As in we're being guilted in to not accepting paper cups and instead bringing re-usable mugs.
[aside rant] We have a very strange cafe culture in the UK compared to continental Europe: too many chains, too expensive, poor quality, takeaway coffee. The latest insult is chains not wanting to wash cups, so now we have to bring in re-usable cups. At least they're offering discounts, for now.