Which way looks more comfortable as you wait for your coffee?

I don’t like waiting in my car, but I fucking hate packed restaurants/cafes where I have to scoot my chair in extra tight so people don’t keep having to rub their junk on me every time they squeeze behind me.
I choose option 3: make my coffee/tea at home because I’m poor asf.
- so people don’t keep having to rub their junk on me
  I agree with GiantFloppyCock.
  
  Is there a sublemmy for rimjob Steve yet?
  
  I wouldn't have noticed without this comment. Love it.
- I'm on option 3 because no coffee/tea is worth the wasted time and resources of leaving my house early (even if I had to commute) to wait in line for it. This is just terminally stupid to me and I am unable to understand why anyone does it as part of their daily routine.
  
  yeah I just make some black coffée when I get to work, maybe add a sugar packet if I feel zesty
- Well, if you weren't poor, you could just go and sit in half empty cafe where trey charge €10+ per cup.
- I hate getting bumped, but for me it's the noise. Can't stand a crowded space with many conversations.
- so people don’t keep having to rub their junk on me
  Same, bro. Now where is this coffee place, so I know where not to go? 📜✍🥸
- High five for practical frugality. I'm with you there.

The car ofc 😂. Air conditioned, my own music, private space, no waiting for a table, no listening to other conversations. But this is a stupid comparison altogether. I wouldn't go to the drive thru for a social coffee and I wouldn't go to the cafe for a quick coffee.
- Most of the people in this thread have evidently never been to a café. They are describing it like some hellish experience, which to be fair in America it probably is
  
  I think most of the people here probably haven't. I myself have only been once.
  The issue with this comparison is the cultural differences. Like in America that bottom image would be basically impossible to get in and out of on the way to work. Whereas Starbs or Dunkin is like a 5 minute pit stop tops
- This, 35 Celsius grades and beyond are no joke.

I don't think the problem with cars is that they aren't comfortable. Unfortunately they are too comfortable. You get to sit in an air conditioned box with leather seats, no external noise while listening to an audiobook. Then your coffee just shows up.
- lol I always think that when cars don’t want to stop for me walking. Like bro chill you’re sitting in a literal recliner rn

The people lining up, instead of parking and taking 5 mins to go inside, are terminally stupid. I encountered this the other day, and I was out the door with my coffee before the line had even moved.
- Wasn't that a covid thing?
  With that being said, there is no way i would've waited there when i saw 3 or more cars.
- Are you by any chance telling them to walk on their legs?
- It’s a catch-22 though. Like, if I get out of my car for 5 minutes with it off then it just heats up to 1000 degrees. I get that the idea of quickly going in and walking out is nice, and I would honestly prefer to not have it at all (yay for just making coffee at home). However for us in incredibly hot climates it isn’t something I ever try to do. It’s 107 out today, 5 minutes with my car off turns it into like 135 on the inside. Of course all of this just adds more to emissions. Which is all of the problem….
  
  Electric cars, if you're going to have a car, do help with this. You just leave the air conditioning on.
  
  My car I bought recently has remote start. So I can turn it (and the AC) on right before I'm about to leave. A minute is enough for it to start blasting plenty of cold air.
- This was during Covid social distancing, probably right when Starbucks was allowed to open back up.
- Many coffee and fast food restaurants around where I live closed down internal seating around covid and still haven't opened the backup now due to staffing issues. Terminally stupid my ass.
  
  Equally terminally stupid your ass, because you can make coffee at home during highly infectious outbreaks.
- Yes because sitting in my car jamming to my music is soooooo stupid.
  
  No, but twenty of you sitting in your idling cars is unbelievably stupid

- It also could be that they are drive-through only. I live in a small town in the midwestern U.S. and a lot of fast-food places around here closed their lobbies during the pandemic and just never reopened them after, usually citing worker shortages.
  
  so i guess no fast food for the poor. as a teen, i got rejected from trying to order from the drive thru because i didn't have a car.

The silver lining is I can nip inside to the almost empty coffee shop and leave with my order before two cars have been served. No idea why these people would rather sit in their car for twenty minutes than walk for twenty seconds.
- I wish this was true, I've tried it multiple times at Starbucks and it doesn't work.
  I think the majority of the staff is working on mobile/drive thru orders vs the orders that come in at the counter.
  Regardless, going inside has taken me longer then joining that stupid line.
- No idea. I served in drive throughs and I can tell you waiting time is shorter inside the store
  
  Waiting time is shorter and I don't have to keep idling the car ( or turning it off and on again) before I can order.
  I'm used to running inside because I ride a motorcycle a lot, and you're right the wait is almost always shorter inside the building. It's fun to see the same cars sitting in the line when you leave.
- Ahh but you can't ever be part of a pretentious and pointless pay it forward chain, where suburbanites of the same financial status pay roughly for someone else what they would have paid for their own drinks
- Because they clearly don't have to worry about all the extra money and time they're wasting on gas to buy commercial coffee every day. Must be nice.
- It is best to just put in the order online. Then you can park, walk in, grab it, walk out and be moving before they serve a single car.

I make my coffee at home. It's cheaper.
- So much time saved too. Takes less time to make it than it ever does to wait in line.

My car is probably more comfortable tbh. Especially if weather is bad.
- Yeah, that headline asks the wrong question.
  -- I look at the bottom picture and see hard chairs, hot sun, bugs, and I don’t know if there are seats but some people are stuck standing.
  -- I look at the top picture and see nice cushy seats, my own music, and air conditioning.
  Comfort is why people put up with these lines
  
  If it was such an unpleasant experience, why are so many people there? Maybe the chairs are comfortable. Maybe there is a pleasant breeze, maybe the people standing are just passing by, and anyone who wanted to sit is doing so. If you don't think an outdoor café can be a comfortable experience, you've obviously never been to one. I have my morning coffee at a place like this all the time and it's lovely.
  
  Those seats look pretty nice, but if it were hot they would just be indoors. There's several people in jackets and suit jackets, so I doubt it's hot. It's all shaded and probably a mild day. Personally, I love going to breweries, and I almost always choose to go places with outdoor seating and sit outside. It's much nicer than sitting in a sealed box all the time to get outside and enjoy the environment when you can.

If I am to answer honestly, the car. But only because it's like a little fortress of solitude and separates me from the public where I would otherwise be an anxious mess. But to be fair, you did only ask what looks more comfortable. I still don't want cars to be the main mode of transportation.
- First, I agree with everything you typed. BUT
  Second, "a little fortress of solitude and separates me from the public" is kinda the problem we have that leads to the top part of the picture. We in the West in general and the United States in particular have lost our sense of community. My car by myself listening to what I want in solitude is AWESOME, but stopping to sit and be part of a community is probably better for me.
  
  For me, I look at all those factors as coping with the fact that we are often alone in our cars and that they inherently create a sense of isolation from the outside world.
- Yep. There's a BIG difference between "I like driving" and "We should design all our towns and cities around driving."
  And the ironic thing is that designing around walking and public transportation makes driving better. You don't have to deal with nearly as much stop & go traffic if there aren't as many people on the road, and if arterial roads don't need to have intersections every few hundred feet.

- Pic number one is definitely more comfortable. Because you don't have to be around so many people. You have your own private environment. Listen to an audiobook, zone out, drink some coffee, sounds perfect.
  
  I know you're getting downvoted, but I agree. I have lost most of my tolerance for people in businesses at this point. Too many rude, inconsiderate jerks treating the staff poorly and acting like they own the place. I'm not saying sitting in your car waiting for it is good either, but compared to dealing with horrible people, I'll take it.
  Now, if you're lucky, you'll find a coffee shop with decent clientele. If you're lucky.
  
  Yeah sounds like a fucking dream. When I'm depressed.
- I'm socially anxious and don't really like crowds so sitting in my car is preferable. But I'd park and walk in rather than wait in a line like that.
  Really I work from home and get my own coffee every day without needing pants, which is infinitely preferable to both.
- Some cars have by far the most comfortable seats I've ever sat in. Nissan in particular has some amazing seats. Far better than anything Herman Miller has ever put out. There's a reason some dedicated people out there take seats out of cars and mount them on the rolly things.
  That said I'm not going to idle my car for more than 5 minutes for just about anything. The people who wait 30 minutes in a drive thru line are insane.
- I'm a fierce opponent of cars in inner cities and I want a revolution in individual transportation that makes us mostly move away from cars (and make cars much smaller for those who are reliant on it).
  However I love driving although I hope I'll never need a car ever again for climates sake. I'd definitely rather sit in my own isolated space.
- It's 43°C out here in Texas, so yes, but I would rather climate refugee my way into a nice place like the bottom picture because with the way things are going, soon 50°C is going to be the new norm out here (especially if we keep building photo one infrastructure) and 43° is already too hot. We also have lines like this for fried chicken. SNL even did a parody auto dealer commercial where the dealership is blocked off by the traffic in line for chicken.
- I hope it's higher than that. I don't want to hike 3 miles to sit on a crowded sidewalk with randos under someone's house to wait 20 minutes for 2 oz of espresso probably in a cloud of cigarette smoke.
  I like a cafe, but it's going to be way out of the way and no one waiting but me.
  
  You guys only have a cafe every 3 miles?
  Lol, we have some every couple of 100 meters. In my small neighborhood town, I know of at least 7.

None of them honestly, both are too crouded.
- Not only that, that brasserie is on the Rive Gauche in Paris so if you sit outside to watch the world go by, the fuckers charge you extra lol
- (I'm just having fun thinking about the comparison, nothing too directed at your statement as I also agree with that)
  Both pictures contain the same amount of people, but there is likely three more shops around the shop in the below picture which all fit in the same space as the upper one, one of which is probably also not as crowded. Also, there are at least 30 apartments in that area as well as other shops and it has worked like that for centuries, if not a millennium

In CA, my rent is close to $2k a month, but I can walk to basically everything I need to. In MI, my rent is $650 a month, but the closest coffee shop is miles away.
- If your car gets 30 mpg, then you could drive 30 miles for less than $5 probably. It would be more frugal to drive and have the cheaper cost of living.
  
  only because it's artificially constructed to be like that for the benefit of the car-oil industrial complex
  
  Yeah if it's all about money then go that route. You are also forgetting the cost of a car itself needed there which is a ton more than just the $5 cost of gas.
  Otherwise walking gets you exercise which is better for your health in the long run and in general; the cafe gives a sense of a "third space" and community and the lack of a car is a ton better for both the environment and traffic which also affects everyone's general health.
  
  That is only true if you prefer money over the environmental damage you do.
  
  I don't have a license which is why I'm not living in MI.
- You know, it's possible to live the walkable life in Michigan.
  Right?
  
  Live in MI. I walk a ton, but the closest dedicated coffee shop (Bigby) is 1.5 miles from me. There are, however, two restaurants that will also serve me coffee within .125 miles.

Honestly traffic laws should still be enforced for those situations. Cars can't just sit in the lane or intersection, so either pull into the parking lot or drive on
- It always baffled me as accpetable that their poor servicing methods/infrastructure (drive thru) was allowed to leak on to publicly funded infrastructure and impact its usability without any reprecussions to the business or its patrons.

On a personal level, I'd realistically pass on both of these places. But the nice thing with the bottom option? 9/10 times there's another place with what I'd want within a reasonable walking distance, along with other options. Even in a small European village I've observed several places to eat within walking distance of each other.
My absolute disdain for traffic overpowers my disdain for crowds by far.

When the drive-thru is that backed up it's often faster to just park in the lot and order inside.
- that photo was almost definitely taken during covid, when going inside was not an option
  
  Not only that, but there's only one car parked. Is there only 1 employee working?
  Not entirely calling shenanigans, but I've got questions.

It's been over 100° for over 40 days straight.
Fuck, yeah I'll take the air-conditioned recliner with a sound system that plays exactly what I want and doesn't require me to walk 4 blocks to get a cup of coffee.
- Coffee shops also often have air-conditioned environments indoors.
  One large benefit of classic coffee shop style design is building community. Presumably you go to your local coffee shop (this obviously doesn't exist in suburbia) and meet other local people there. It provides opportunity to just get to meet other people, which helps people feel more connected and less scared of each other, and also let's them rely on each other when needed. It also creates a space people can use for organization efforts. You can advertise for local mutual aid groups or political organizations or whatever else to people with likely similar interests.
  Car culture (particularly in America) has destroyed most people's sense of community. You live in your space, drive wherevever you need to go in your private bubble, and never interact with people living near you. It's not good.
  
  We have local coffee shops too with all the little art shows and community organizing and a bunch of annoying hippies preaching about essential oils and salt lamps. There's like 7 of them in my town of 20,000. But sometimes people just want a godamnned mochafrappabullshit on the way into the office, and a drive-thru is a great option for them.
  Honestly, I usually just use the pot at work or grab a cup in the gas station. It's been years since I used a Starbucks. But they have their place - especially if you live somewhere where walking down the street for coffee means you have to take another shower before going in to work.

The top one looks like an amogus

All you car haters, I'd like to see you sitting outside, having a coffee, in Arizona during the summer where it is 56°C during most hours on a daily basis.
- Shouldn't have built a city in the middle of the fucking desert.
  
  Don't say that my dude, most of your computer chips are from there
- You could still do the bottom picture inside.
- Well, Arizona is not meant to be lived in. As well as Mars, for example.
- I don't believe that anyone from Arizona would use Celsius.
  
  It's the only way it'll ever be 2 numbers again
  
  There are lots of Canadians in Arizona!
  
  I respect base 10/metric, base 12/imperial is braindead, and think the US has a lower than average self awareness and introspection.
  Metric (aka normal) is a worldwide standard. Inches and feet are not (really). Celsius is Kevin with an offset, which is why it makes more sense.
- Those coffee shops have inside space too.
- They way North America cities are designed it's definitely not pleasant.
  Nothing more enjoyable then a car traveling at 60kmh right beside your patio table.
- The picture on the bottom is from France. I bet they would still drink their coffee in +56 because they sit like that during winter under a bloody snowstorm.
  
  You can dress up for winter. You cannot dress down for "fuck you" heat.
- [insert King of the Hill quote]

in the US, there’s another side that makes it even more frustrating – not only is turning every square foot into road or parking being actively rewarded – but any attempt in the other direction is actively punished – reams of legislation against medium density housing, open patio seating, mixed use zoning, walkable cities, bike-friendly roads, …
- imagine what would happen if federal dollars could only be spent on upkeep of existing highways and not to build more or expand highways, and the excess money was put into rail transit construction and protected bike lanes

The cars. I’m also not a fan of crowds so there is that. Still, fuck all these cars. I can walk in and get my coffee to go.

The amount of coal rolling cope going on here is kind of wild... first time seeing people culture-war mad on Lemmy. Kill your darlings, I guess.

I dont see any living spaces above that Starbucks.
Speaking of miserable places to live.

Both look horrible.

Neither. Place is packed both places.
This is why I make coffee at home.
- Of all the responses, this is my favorite!

i don't drive, so it would have to be #2 (otherwise no coffee for me).
tbh i feel bad for the people living above the restaurant. i used to live above an italian restaurant and the patrons were so loud that we'd receive love letters from the landlord saying things like "do not throw milk in the courtyard".

- It's just one more block! Lol anywhere with a walkable city would have at least 2 coffee shops per km for this exact reason.
- That's Europe. We have cafes at every corner.
- It's literally under the house. You just walk down the stairs and drink some coffee with your friends!

The one where I just get a cup from my MrCoffee drip coffee maker and stay home.

Why yes I would rather sit in my comfy padded chair in the AC where I can listen to my own music and charge my cell phone rather than sitting on a metal chair listening to 20 other people's conversations in 100 degree weather.
There are many arguments against drive-thru restaurants. This is a stupid ass one.
- Americans can never understand culture. Quality isnot convenience
  
  indeed. long drive-thrus just suck.
  
  The quality of my car seats and its various other comforts vastly exceeds the quality and convenience of most restaurants, because it can drive me to anywhere the roads lead to and it doesn't have all those other stinky people in it.
  Yeah I'm going with option #1 but only if I didn't already bring my own coffee from home, which I'd normally do because it's better and cheaper than what the restaurant has too.

The top one. I’m tired and I’d rather rest on my car seat in the warm interior than on one of those wooden chairs. I ride bikes a lot, 5000 km per year and I advocate for walk ability but nothing beats a coffee in my warm car on a 6am commute where it’s 6°c outside

I'd much rather make my own coffee at home. It's pennies on the dollar compared to this shit, and I'm not spending an extra half hour or more out of my day for something I'll consume in minutes once it reaches optimal drinking temperature.
I use an aeropress, which allows me to make concentrated coffee that I can store in the fridge. I pour a little into an insulated travel cup and just add hot water when I want to drink it - either just before going on a drive, or after I get to work. I take a proper mug with me to work along with it and pour into it out of the travel cup. It's one of the highlights of my day.
I hate drive-through culture and am glad to not have anything to do with it, but I'm also not a big fan of sitting in public spaces amongst a bunch of strangers who actually like slurping down sugary caffeine drinks out of paper cups.

This post backfired spectacularly on OP, didn't it?
- Actually, no, it didn't. Unlike many children of the internet, I can learn and expand my horizons with new vantages. Many people take coffee in a variety of ways, as it appears. By illustrating this dichotomy, in the end, I could better unravel the tapestry that is coffee drinking, thereby enriching my life. Sorry if this disappoints, but as Monty Python said, "Always look on the bright side of life."

Lifes too short for this. Full automatic at home and instant powder for on the goes. :)

Wat? The first one. The idea of going into a crowded Cafe is uhhhhhhh. People directly next to you and babies blah blah blah
- 💯 Yeah, I get to sit in my own comfy chair, with ac, my own music or silence, without people coughing on me, with my doors locked if I feel like it.
  That type of busyness in either picture is exceptional. If I get into a car to get somewhere, it's almost always easier AND FASTER to just stay in it.
  Do I think it would be better if they were all electric? Yes.
  Is coffee bad for the environment? At every step, yes.
  Do I like well made espresso? Yes.
  Do I want to go anywhere for a cup of coffee? No.
  Do I have the equipment to make good espresso at home? No.
  Do I think going without is the best form of being better for the environment? In many cases, yes.
  Will I still go somewhere for a chance at a great cup of espresso? Maybe once every other month.
  What is the goal of FuckCars and this sort of perspective? Seems like it should be sustainability and quality of life.
  Do I think cars are the enemy? No.
  Do I wish I didn't have to deal with them? Yes.
  Are there any 100% sustainable, more efficient, better quality of life suggestions that are feasible out there? Not yet.
  Do I think FuckCars is a whine? Generally, yes.
  Do I think it's an important debate to keep open? One of the most important.
  Why do I criticize it? Because it never addresses the complexity of the problem or produces any feasible solutions or steps to take. It's a cope with blanket implicit blame. We all want better.

I like the sentiment, but imagine it's above 35^oC

Since it’s 103°, number one.

dude why is there like a whole car length in front of most of those cars?? are they moving forward or something or just completely inept?
- When I started driving I was taught to leave enough space between my car and the next car that I could turn out without any other car moving (in front or behind).
  If you snug up it limits your options
  
  It's amazing how most drivers forget this.
  I had one person a few weeks ago blast his horn because he was "stuck" behind my car (I was taking a left he was going forward, one lane).
  If they had left enough space to see my cars back tires on the road they would have plenty of space to manoeuvre.
- Could just be the pic was taken while some of the cars were moving.

Cars cause global warming. Cars have air-conditioning. Temp outside right now is 105 F. The first one.