When I moved to London in 1998, there weren't decent places to get take out coffee.
There was Pret, which hadn't yet mastered the art of lids for their take out coffee, and there was some Starbucks ripoff chain with a few locations that Starbucks eventually bought (now it's everywhere there as here), with even worse coffee than Starbucks. But getting a "take away" coffee without a lid. ugh.
