If, like me, you are the proud resident of an underdog, outer-London postcode, then you will be familiar with the anticipation that generally attends a new-build. Will it, you wonder, be an independent coffee place? A chic wine bar? Or, maybe, an Asian supermarket, slinging unexpectedly terrific takeaway dumplings? The mind whirs; hours are lost to fruitless, investigative Googling.
And then, of course, it actually opens up and inevitably turns out to be a Costa. Or a dessert bar. Or an estate agent’s office. And you mutter quiet curses, while also reminding yourself that nothing with much soul or sexiness ever seems to open up in these spaces. They are, generally speaking, monuments to missed opportunity.
