Nothing brings on my Joan of Arc syndrome, that overwhelming urge to whip out a nice medieval two-handed sword and bellow "God has sent me to save you!", like a museum cafe.
I've never worked in a museum or been a curator or a conservator, so I stand in baffled admiration of their skills. But I did work in a sandwich bar for many years, so l know how long it takes to make a bacon butty or wipe down a table.
You need to keep your hand in, but I reckon I could still shell and slice a bucket of boiled eggs in the time it takes the wearer of a black linen bib to look stunned at the mere idea of a punter coming up to the counter looking for food and announce that the chef is gone.
I vividly recall a newly opened and lavishly lottery endowed museum in the north of England. The server and I looked sadly at the only thing left on any shelf, one sagging sausage roll.
"I could heat it up for you, pet," she said reluctantly, and then northern honesty compelled her to add "but I don't think it would help."
There was just one perfect museum cafe - the Tea Shop beside the Watts Gallery at Compton in Surrey. It looked like the inside of a nice garden shed, and perfectly matched the gallery's combination of high standards and slight crankiness.
In all the years I've gone there no-one has never asked if I'm having a nice day, and it doesn't serve anything much except excellent things on toast, and extraordinary cakes that look like a jolly delightful spread laid on by Billy Bunter - but what it does, it does perfectly.
I love both gallery and tea shop so much, my heart lifts as soon as I see the signpost for Guildford Crematorium which marks the turn off the A3. And now the gallery, closed to become just as it was but better, they promise, is taking catering in-house, so the tea shop must find a new home.
I will try to remain friends with both, but I fear like a particularly bloody divorce it may prove impossible.
I've never worked in a museum or been a curator or a conservator, so I stand in baffled admiration of their skills. But I did work in a sandwich bar for many years, so l know how long it takes to make a bacon butty or wipe down a table.
You need to keep your hand in, but I reckon I could still shell and slice a bucket of boiled eggs in the time it takes the wearer of a black linen bib to look stunned at the mere idea of a punter coming up to the counter looking for food and announce that the chef is gone.
I vividly recall a newly opened and lavishly lottery endowed museum in the north of England. The server and I looked sadly at the only thing left on any shelf, one sagging sausage roll.
"I could heat it up for you, pet," she said reluctantly, and then northern honesty compelled her to add "but I don't think it would help."
There was just one perfect museum cafe - the Tea Shop beside the Watts Gallery at Compton in Surrey. It looked like the inside of a nice garden shed, and perfectly matched the gallery's combination of high standards and slight crankiness.
In all the years I've gone there no-one has never asked if I'm having a nice day, and it doesn't serve anything much except excellent things on toast, and extraordinary cakes that look like a jolly delightful spread laid on by Billy Bunter - but what it does, it does perfectly.
I love both gallery and tea shop so much, my heart lifts as soon as I see the signpost for Guildford Crematorium which marks the turn off the A3. And now the gallery, closed to become just as it was but better, they promise, is taking catering in-house, so the tea shop must find a new home.
I will try to remain friends with both, but I fear like a particularly bloody divorce it may prove impossible.
