It doesn’t matter where you are in the world or what you are doing, if you visit a place often enough the people working in that place should, at least, start to recognize you; this usually brings on a whole new level of service and service interactions no longer take on the automatic, scripted sterility. And so it is that my local Coffee Heaven sees far too much of me during the week and we have now progressed onto the next level of service, the relaxed, natural interaction that adds that something else to the whole proceedings.

Now I would like to point out that Coffee Heaven is slightly different in Prague in that it does seem to employ people who at least make an effort to be polite, or at least it seems to be a ‘good’ employer in that the people working there are encouraged to do so and they gladly oblige by being, well, pleasant; there have been one or two exceptions, but in general this is one of those beacons of change that is doing well (another is the fresh fruit drinks bar, which I will write about some time).

So when I wander in of a morning I am greeted with an even more pleasant smile and a ‘dobry den’; the coffee is waiting for me before I have even paid and we all wish each other a pleasant day, it makes the day start so much better if it is this way.

• Coffee Heaven