Alas! Macaris! Allez Eastcliff!

I'm just here musing on a week's holiday in the West Country, cafes I have known and loved, and the price of a cheese toastie.  How things change.  Just as the 1950s themed icecream parlour takes off in all parts of the country, Macaris on Torquay seafront which was the archetypal 1950s themed etc etc has reinvented itself as a pizzeria cafe bar!  That covers all bases, except of course for people like me who want an evening stroll by the seafront rounded off with a lovely coffee maybe with cake but definitely not with pizza.  Though I have to admit that if Macaris was relying on my custom they would have been out of business years ago.  Wouldn't it be ironic if someone opened up an old-style Macaris right next door?

But out with the old, in with the new!  We have discovered a delightful seaside cafe at Teignmouth!  The Eastcliff cafe has a sheltered spot right near the lido where you can enjoy sea views and sea air and a cheese toastie that is half the price of some other establishments in the town.  The more expensive varieties seem to be distinguished only by a salad garnish but that is based on rumour not research - good reason to go back!  The Eastcliff's mugs are worth a look too  and I for one will keep calm and keep on coming back.

These you (well I) have loved...

Feeling a bit sentimental, so here's a list of cafes from my mis-spent southern youth, none of which are with us today.  Gone, but the good times are not forgotten...

The Parkona
Dingles coffee shop
Newton Abbot bus station cafe (remind me to tell you about the biker accidentally setting fire to his hair)
Tinley's, Exeter
Colsons, Exeter
Three Cooks, Dawlish
The Chicken Cafe
Bevans
Macari's, Fleet Street, Torquay.  I know there's one by the harbour but it's not quite the same.
That one in Totnes by the arch (Lindy's?)