Anthropology Food and Drink

Clientele

July 11, 2026 by David 93 Comments

It occurs to me that if you’re running a “trans-owned LGBTQIA+ bookshop and coffee shop” – “queer books, queer haircuts, queer coffee” – yes, queer coffee – and your patrons have to be reminded, via “guidelines displayed on each table,” of how to behave like even minimally civilised people, then you may want to seek out a better class of patron.

From said guidelines:

Please avoid addressing the whole room.

Please maintain good personal hygiene out of consideration for other customers.

That’s before we get to the bits about “violent, abusive, and disruptive behaviour” and, inevitably, “crisis support.” And yet, despite the somewhat concerning reminders about violence and basic hygiene, what caught my eye was the bit about taking your craft projects home with you when you leave.

Yes, today’s word is littering. Why do you ask?

For those of you intrigued – and I can feel the hum of excitement in the room – temptations include Sad Dyke Poetry Night – two hours of mournful lesbians, first Friday of every month – “open to all emotions and all identities” – plus lots of talks about mental health, and Queer Yarn, an evening of “fibre craft” every other Saturday afternoon.

There’s also a Queer Art Takeover, in which suitably queer artists are invited to “rent a shelf” to display their creative outpourings and general queerness. And those best-selling pronoun pins are now back in stock.

Oh, and Palestinian cola drinks. Obviously.

Update, via the comments:

Commenter [+] quotes this,

Please avoid addressing the whole room.

Please maintain good personal hygiene out of consideration for other customers.

And adds,

I’ll take ‘things that should go without saying’ for 400 please, Alex.

Quite. And presumably every one of those bullet points – complete with its own big pink heart – tells a story about the venue’s clientele. Some incident or other. After all, you’d only need to announce this rather bizarre list of rules if you already have a significant number of customers who are enormously selfish and self-absorbed, prone to littering and violence and psychological crises, and whose personal hygiene falls far short of what one might hope.

The fact that the rules are there – printed up on every table – tells us quite a lot. More than intended, I venture. One might even infer some correlation of selfish and antisocial behaviour with the supposedly radical “identities” being professed. For instance.

Previously in the laugh-a-minute world of ostentatiously “queer” venues.




Subscribestar
Share: