THE OPEN-AIR CAFE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19208, 10 January 1925, Page 4

THE OPEN-AIR CAFE

Why not, in these summer days, an open-air cafe for Wanganui? lan Hay somewhere smartly contrasts the English fondness for indoor eating and working with the more airy routine methods of other countries. It is cer-

tainly strange that, in this warm latitude, wo should cling so stubbornly to the English custom of keeping dietary digressions almost entirely indoors, except, of course, when picknicking or camping out. An Australian champion of the open-air cafe has remarked that in these dominions, while we cheerfully break the stuffy traditions of generations by sleeping on verandahs or in special porches, when it comes to a cafe lunch or afternoon tea the inside of a shop seems the only place available. Climatically and temperamentally, he says, we in these southern lands are suited to the openair cafe, and it is remarkable that so far, even in the larger cities, very little has been done to cater for such a sensible change. In most European cities the open-air cafe is a commonplace convenience for vivacious and healthy little festivities, and something of the same picturesque sort might well be attempted in Wanganui. Of course, there, will always be a fexv people who will prefer the indoor afternoon tea table, even with the thermometer touching the century mark, just as some will apparently never forsake the habit of sleeping inside a bedroom with door and windows closed against “the dangerous night, air.” Still, there must be many who look xvith envy at the European citizen’s daily opportunity of dining and supping in cool comfort practically on the very fringe of some pleasantly shaded footpath.