Ineresting you think like that.
Down here where I live, however, there aren't any coffee shops but several cafe's. Vera's and Midway are in the next couple of towns over. If you want to go to a 'coffee' shop you will have to drive to the city which is a couple hours or more depending on which direction you go. The cafe's around here serve the best southern food I've ever had, fried chicken and chicken fried steaks being up there on my list without the collards... In the mornings you can get some killer SoS. Most of these joints are family owned and have been around forever and a day.
One popular thing is still fried chicken and waffles...Yuck.... But otherwise, just good ole greasy spoons! and mostly still called cafe's
Anywho..
Cheers
It's not just me who thinks like that. You can search online and find several articles saying that the words are very often used interchangeably (but then also make distinctions between the two). I've also been to a large number of states in America, and I see very little distinction between the two, despite what some folks claim. Like I say, it's very common wherever I've been in America. Sure, some regions might vary to different degrees: the nation is a pretty sizable one, after all.
Your description only underscores what I was saying. Those places in your area are mostly all called
cafés and you don't really have
coffee shops there. That's fair enough. Still, if an out-of-towner asked about a "coffee shop", wouldn't you assume they meant "a place to get coffee" and so point them to a café? Or would you really reply with something like, "Well, we don't have any 'coffee shops'," and then act as if you can't help them at all even though there's a café nearby? You yourself were able to work out that the location what Ahchi's, so I see no problem with it as it is. As I said, if the response is in the vein of, "Well,
technically...." — one of the least necessary things to say in reply — a person comes off as well-to-do, arrogant, or intentionally difficult.
It is what it is. It's why most people I've met use the terms interchangeably. They might only ever
say "café" themselves, but when someone else says "coffee shop", they don't get hung up on technicalities. It's also why I disagree with you: the wording doesn't need to be changed at all IMO.