to wonder why coffee shops like Costa and Caffè Nero always so busy?

@XenoBitch

Oh, absolutely!

Oh gosh, don't get me started on places that charge different prices for different size tea servings. It is just a tea bag and water!

And the last independent place I tried - a couple of days ago - charged £3 for a cuppa and used a Tetley (peppermint) teabag. I wasn’t impressed!

Because people know what they are getting.
And the more impersonal nature of it makes it easier for people to whip out their laptops and not have to worry about ordering too many drinks.

YANBU
They are awful 😖. I don't understand why people go there. The coffee tastes like instant coffee, you can taste the urn from the parboiled tea and the cakes are awful.

I was just about to post this! Costa coffee is 😝

£1 cafe nero once a week if you have 3+ rewards and get a code in time.
That’s the only reason I go there.

DP has a job where he works remotely. He likes Costa. Free Wifi, and he likes the tea. He will spend hours in there working.
He has racked up about 50+ free drinks on his Costa card. He uses them to treat me (a benefit bum) to a hot chocolate or one of their new matcha drinks.
Our local tends to be very busy, and you see a lot of familiar faces.

Costa is cheaper than the other coffee shops where I am and has by far the most spacious seating area. It has more options for a child than the independent coffee shops.

Same when it comes to spending.

I go 1-2x a week. It is the only quiet and relatively cheap place I can go to sit with a coffee for hours and is open past 5:30pm.

There are so many good independent coffee shops and cafes to go to instead.

Not in my area. There’s maybe 1 or 2 independents and they’re location small, often packed and noisy the times I could go alone. The rest are chains.

I also refuse to pay an extra 50 p / £1 for oat milk when I can walk 5 minutes and get a whole carton for the same price.

This is MN, where spending a tenner a day on fancy coffee is seen as a basic human right.

Obviously you don’t drink coffee if you think it cost a tenner a day.

My one drink is between £4 - £4.50 depending on size and even if I wanted to make it really fancy, it wouldn’t even get to being a tenner unless I added a ridiculous amount of syrups and extras and by then it would be undrinkable.

It is cheaper than going to a pub where many are often buying more than one drink whereas people getting a coffee are typically only getting one.

Even if I got a sandwich or a cake/pastry, it would still be under a tenner.

I get a cup of tea in my local indie coffee shop which is also a plant shop. It’s gorgeous and they have a nice range of teas which are cheaper than coffee. The staff also accomodate my autistic child and his only want of …tap water.

I tip them or buy a plant too sometimes.

That’s a wild statement. Some of us have subscriptions 🤣

Both DH and I get a free CN a week through insurance, plus stamps add up to more if we have take away in our own cups. The babychinos are free, and DD5 prefers that to a more grown up drink. If we pay in app you get at least 25% off food. So often it’s free or very cheap for what we are having. I also go in pre work sometimes and as other posters have said it’s only the chains open at that time.

I agree OP. But most on here won’t. This is MN, where spending a tenner a day on fancy coffee is seen as a basic human right.

Costa is my favourite chain coffee shop, and a lot of people I know who prefer their coffee stronger love Nero. At over £4 a drink in some branches prices are getting a bit steep (I remember when my latte was £2.25!), but I’d cut something else from my budget before my latte when I go in to the office (2x per week).

I have a daily coffee on my way in to work. It’s my only “treat” really. It’s part of my routine and it’s how I start the day.

I drink tea, not coffee so apart from Starbucks who serve cats piss tea the others generally are much of a muchness

I would go for breakfast to somewhere like that everyday whilst working away. It was expensable and a lot cheaper than the hotel breakfasts.

I came here to say exactly this but you'd already done the job for me.

Mystery to me, the coffee in these places isnt good and thats being polite about it

I live in a place with 2 amazing independent coffee places and a costa and a coffee1… the coffee Is SO much better in the independent places but Costa and coffee1 are always full! The coffee is Costa is vile I’d rather have no coffee than Costa coffee

I drink coffee in Pret. It’s not for the amazing coffee but the fact that I can sit there with friends and enjoy their company. In fact a filter coffee is 49p if you take your own cup 😁 which I think most budgets could afford.

I like a coffee once a week as a treat. When I was studying I got way more done if I was out of the house.

People go out for coffee instead of the pub. Back in the day when I first started work, we would often go to the pub lunchtime, or 2/3 nights a week. It’s now much too expensive for most people to do that, so they go for a coffee instead.

I find it strange that it’s always cafes that are highlighted on threads like these. It’s always “why are so many people paying £5 for a coffee during a cost of living crisis?”

But never “why are people paying £6 for a pint / £15 for a manicure / £50 for a haircut?”

It seems there’s something about people choosing to spend their disposable income on coffee that is unfathomable to some people.

I visit a coffee shop most days - often Costa or Caffè Nero - and for me personally it’s something I value and think is worth the money. Either I work from home and it’s nice to go for walk and buy a takeaway coffee, or sit for an hour with my laptop in a cafe. Or I go the office and buy a coffee en route.