The latest plan to save the red phone box: coffee kiosks

The U.K.'s red phone booths have had a tough time since, you know, everyone started carrying a phone around -- but they're not all going to the junk heap.

Phone boxes have been reincarnated as libraries and fish tanks -- so why not a coffee shop?

"I don't want to see something so iconic in the UK go to waste, so I think I've put it to better use now," manager Jake Hollier said.

This box in Birmingham serves coffee to commuters, and it'll hopefully have company. It's part of a charitable effort to turn unused phone booths into kiosks by an organization called Thinking Outside the Box.

It's one of the more innovative ideas out there on how to make phone boxes a productive part of city life again, right up there with using them to charge mobile phones.

If you have your own ideas on how to save a phone box, you could test them out by adopting one from British telecom BT. It only costs a pound, and the company says you can turn it into whatever you want, including an art gallery, book exchange and heartbeat defibrillator.

Check out the full video below: