A few weeks ago I was obligated to deliver bad news to someone I very much like. I would have preferred to avoid the situation however had little choice but to do it deciding that a café would be the ideal place. I thought the person would feel comfortable that they weren't in my domain, my comfort-zone, and out of their own. Neutral ground so to speak.
I didn't count on the person thinking it was a social gathering though, and that made it somewhat difficult for me as the person was genuinely pleased to see me. Awkward.
We exchanged small talk, ordered some coffee and, to prop up my confidence, I had a lemon and passionfruit tart. It was delicious. Then I got down to business.
The meeting didn't go badly and no, I didn't choose a café-setting to circumvent the opportunity of the other person getting upset and raising their voice. I simply thought it would be a nice setting for such a meeting and it turned out that way.
It brought me to contemplate the nature of cafés a little later on. They are places people have congregated for thousands of years to talk about the news of the day, do business - wholesome or nefarious, pass along information, a lover's tryst or clandestine meeting; so many reasons over the years...and here we are doing the same.
I know I'm not alone in holding business meetings in cafés and sometimes those meetings mean the start of something, sometimes the end...In my case above it was the end however there was a silver lining as I was, most happily, later able to deliver some good news opening up great opportunity for the person I'd met so a week later we met again and the entire vibe of the meeting was different.