The Law of Unintended Diner Consequences

I was emailing a friend of mine back in New York who is a waiter at the diner I used to frequent. And I was bemoaning the lack of diners in Scotland, in fact the whole UK. Really, the closest you get to an American-style diner here in the UK is a transport cafe, the kind that you used to see on the roads/motorways. These however, are exceedingly rare these days, having been killed off by motorway services, which are invariably a Burger King, KFC, and or a rather crap self-service cafe. Even the original transport cafes were nowhere near as good, cheap and cool as an upper East coast American diner. When I used to play in rockabilly bands my UK friends in the scene were particularly obsessed with American diner culture (which is somewhat ironic since I was always obsessed with European, particularly French, cafe culture; plus ca change...) and wishing it could be found in Blighty. I think the closest the UK ever came to having an American style diner was the Ace Cafe in North London, but even then that was mostly about atmosphere and not food. Anyway, I was thinking about why that was the case, other than Brits traditionally having no taste for decent food and not caring about not having any taste for food (it should be noted that this has greatly changed over the last 20 years; I blame TV chefs and cheap holidays to Florida – it only takes a trip to one all you can eat buffet to open up your eyes).

Anyway, I was thinking about why this was the case. I think that there are two main reasons; real estate and taxes. Both of these reasons are intertwined with the fact the basic nature of the diner is to sit down to eat. Although Americans have always been very big on eating on the go, they also been very big on quick meals in places where you can sit down – lunch counters and diners. And while shop space in American cities has always been expensive, it is been much more so in towns and cities in the UK. Shops here are small because rent is expensive. A shopkeeper has to make every square foot of his shop pay for itself. That is why you do not tend to see shops in the UK that are laid out with beautiful minimalist designs like an Apple Store in the US. It just doesn't make financial sense. By the same token, restaurants tend to take up lots of space. In a sitdown restaurant the kitchen is actually only a small percentage of the total floor space. In the UK the thinking tends to be on how to minimise business costs – since those costs tend to be so high – rather than how to increase business to cover those costs. So for the would-be UK restauranteur, If you are aiming at the lower end of the market, it makes much more sense to open a takeaway (no dining room which means no waitresses, no dishes and cutlery, and much less washing, etc) than a traditional sitdown restaurant. The other big detriment for a restaurant owner here is VAT, which is the sales tax in the UK. The government does not charge VAT on food, unless it is served in a sitdown restaurant. Oh, and did I mention that the VAT is 17.5%? So for the privilege of sitting down to eat your meal, it will cost you 17.5% more. And most people in the UK do not feel that is good value for money. Most people here wanting a cheap meal would be happy to take it home, or more likely just eat it in the street rather than pay for the privilege of sitting down. Britain is one of the few European countries were eating in the street (other than something like an ice cream cone) is not frowned upon (in fact it is very common). While I'm sure there are other forces at work, I think it's likely that these two economic factors are the main reasons why an American-style diner culture has never taken hold in the UK.