Gratitude #70: Businesses that used to be other businesses but don’t name themselves after those businesses

This one is hard to resist but promise me you’ll try if you ever open a cafe. Say you fall in love with this delightful ex-Post Office and you absolutely MUST lease it or you’ll like DIE and you’ll never live it down (evidently, seeing as you’d already be dead). So you follow your dream and snap it up. The very second that ‘Leased’ sticker hits that window you’ll be visited by a bristly old tumbleweed from the local council telling you it’d be a real shame if future generations had no idea this used to be a Post Office back when people used Post Offices. So no pressure, but unless you name it The Old Post Office Cafe you’ll have to deal with roadworks outside your cafe for the duration of your lease term, thanks to one John Bristleweed Snr.

Another reason you must resist the siren song of the historically significant heritage building is that usually the facade comprises a big fancy door and archwork and the smallest windows you’ll ever (not) see. It’s a real gamble for customers to walk into these buildings because they have no idea if inside is going to be good or shit. It’s the same reason none of the World’s Most Liveable Cities tend to be blessed with natural physical beauty or a nice climate. The top cities in the world are the ones that have had to work hard to create a real culture precisely because they don’t have any natural beauty to recommend them. They create the beauty themselves and it almost always turns out deeper than the shallow beauty of those cities you see on Pinterest. The same thing applies to heritage buildings, people think the grand exterior will do all the work for them and therefore don’t do any work to create any meaningful value themselves.

Plus you’ll get the occasional old dear come in and try to mail a letter, which while funny, ain’t good for nobody.