Our local cafes and restaurants are more than just destinations to go grab a sandwich. Our favourite coffee shop is where we kick off our day with a coconut latte or a croissant, we head to family brunch with the kiddos every weekend before kicking a ball around the park and restaurants are where we love to gather with friends and loved ones, to celebrate a birthday, a promotion or an anniversary.

Lockdown had us itching to get back inside our favourite eateries and pedestrianisation schemes have given us the opportunity to enjoy al fresco dining once restaurants, pubs and cafes re-opened their doors.

The hugely successful Eat Out to Help Out initiative has helped us remember just how much we’ve missed dining out. In fact, the Federation of Small Businesses is urging the government to extend the Eat Out to Help Out scheme for longer, to assist small business owners around the country (customers, who have saved 50% on everything from smoothies to multi-course dinners on Mondays-Wednesdays throughout August, are benefitting too).

We chat to restaurant and cafe goers on what they’ve missed about cafe and restaurant life in lockdown.

“I love walking to my favourite restaurant on the beach”

“What I missed most in lockdown was the lovely coastal walk I often do with my friend around Langland Bay,” says Julie, a grandmother in Swansea. “We usually end up at the local brasserie which overlooks the beach. I really missed the view. It was super nice to be welcomed back as the sun was setting.”

“Although this was indeed a catastrophic time, it felt like a social experiment that showed how important eating out and socialising was in our everyday life”

Stratis, from Crystal Palace, has spent the past 15 years frequenting his favourite coffee spots – he alternates between three. He uses them as social havens, workspaces, and places to relax.

“In the past eight or nine years, the local bakery has become our hub where we meet with different groups of people; sometimes we chat and other times we work (each one doing his own business), and at the same time we socialise while working. 

“Some days it was just sitting with a coffee and cake and a book or just watching life going by. It was all very under-appreciated and I never realised how important that part of our cafe life had become until the COVID19 closures hit us (with a vengeance) and it was taken away from us. 

“That habitual joy of being able to be out freely and communicate with people evaporated. At the beginning it did not seem really hard, but as time went by it became more and more difficult. Only then did it really become apparent how important that part of life was. 

“Deep inside us we have that fear that this all can easily happen again. For now I am enjoying every time that I have the opportunity to be there, meet and chat with people and hope it will not be taken away from us again.”

 “We really need to support our local businesses because if it wasn’t for the community and the local businesses that we’ve got we wouldn’t have everything at our fingertips like we do around here” 

Property manager and mum-of-three Lisa has been a southwest London local of Battersea’s Northcote Road for the past two decades, and loves to support all of the local restaurants and shops. The stretch has been pedestrianised at weekends – a move that has been extended until the end of September – to encourage eating out and socially distanced camaraderie post-lockdown. Not only is she a fan of the local dining scene; her eldest child is now working at a newly opened Japanese restaurant on Northcote Road, which opened its doors to much fanfare during lockdown.

“I love all of the local businesses and the restaurants. It’s so nice to see everybody’s faces and to feel normal again – to be able to go out with the children and with friends.

“What we’ve seen over the last six months makes you really appreciate how lucky we are to live in such a wonderful area. As we get older and our children get older and they’re going out, I really appreciate how lucky they are to wander down the road and go get a sandwich or a smoothie, and all the bougie little coffee shops.

“I love the Italian restaurants around here. My eldest son was in our local favourite having pizza the other night with his mates and it’s just so lovely – they all recognise him because he’s been going there since he was a baby. It’s really special. 

“It’s been so awful, it was like tumbleweed going down the road when lockdown happened and now it feels very alive.”

“Over lockdown, we missed Sunday roasts in our favourite restaurant the most”

“My boyfriend, daughters and I were so happy to be able to go back to our favourite restaurant in Mumbles after lockdown. We love the owners and how welcoming they always are. They make eating out as a family such a relaxed experience. We missed their incredible Sunday roasts but this week’s visit certainly made up for it,” says Kate, a mum-of-two in Wales.

“Getting a takeaway coffee each day kept me going through lockdown”

Many local cafes and restaurants reinvented themselves as takeaway joints and even mini supermarkets selling fresh produce, during the weeks, and months, in lockdown. Will, 36, made it a habit to enjoy a coffee on his ‘walk a day’.

“I can’t get through my workday without a proper coffee – I’ve become so used to them. My usual coffee shops were all closed through lockdown so I walked a bit farther and discovered a new one serving takeaways through lockdown that formed the basis of my daily walk, which then took me through the park. 

“I would walk for around an hour each day, passing an Italian restaurant that had started selling produce where I’d get fresh vegetables, shopping from the street. Now that more places have opened up, I find I’m still going to the farther-away coffee shop once a week for a friendly hello and a chat about how their family is doing.”