I tried to go this route in Sunless Citadel, but it was a little rocky. One group went right for the usual tavern-room shenanigans, so I tried to humor them a little, where-as I flat-out told my veteran group that we weren't going to do any active roleplay in Oakhurst, so they could just say what they were trying to accomplish there and how they were going about it. For example, "I want to find out more about the Sunless Citadel, so I visit the tavern and speak to as many locals as I can, asking them about the Citadel's history and the goblins that dwell there."
For whatever reason, though, a lot of players expect the whole game to be conducted in active roleplay (Critical Role and other streaming shows have probably encouraged this idea). If they want information about the Sunless Citadel, then they think they need to locate specific townspeople and create a scene with each one. First there's the innkeeper, then there's the hooded traveler in the corner, then the farmers at a nearby table, and on and on.
There's nothing necessarily wrong with this, of course, but damn is it boring when there's no dramatic conflict (i.e. in a dungeon-crawl). It also eats up a ton of time, if not whole sessions.
I'm not sure what to do about this, but in the future, I'll probably frame town visits in the past tense. "The party spent a few days recuperating in town. What did you do during that time?"