Not to understand the appeal of Starbucks, Costa, etc.?

[Nataleejah]

What is the thing with them?
Drinks are nothing special, food is not the freshest, yet you pay for a coffee and a sandwich just as much as for a decent restaurant meal.
Or it its an adult version of a "happy meal" ?

I tend to go to Costa for their seasonal specials as a treat for the dc. Ds and I enjoyed a toffee apple hot chocolate last week and had a good chat about a problem he had been having.
The dc seem to prefer this treat rather than our local independent coffee shops that don't tend to cater for younger taste buds.

Although looking into it more, seems that the scientist who pronounced it dead last week hasn't the backing of anyone else. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/14/great-barrier-reef-severe-stress-not-dead-yet

But it still doesn't look healthy.

And I really rate Starbucks tea - though tea is all about the water and we're lucky here with soft water that works well with the tea they use.

This thread is pure snobbery. "Ooooh look at meee with my independent coffee shop, reusable cup and oodles of free time to make coffee at home!"

I never drink coffee and rarely do Starbucks but I also semi-regularly work 12-14 hour days and rarely get home from work till 11pm. I also have to run all over London and don't get meal breaks. So judge me all you want for not being able to go 14 hours without food. Not everyone's a rich SAHM or in a cushy 9-5 office job.

you don't have to be rich or even middling to be able to make a pack lunch and fill a flask. intact it's a good way to save money.

and if you have enough money to buy takeaway coffee then it doesn't cost more to choose where you by it from and potentially decide to support local jobs and businesses rather than large corporations.

don't be so ridiculous.

You do have to have time to make a packed lunch. You simply do. It is not as quick or as convenient as picking it up ready made. Also if you're getting on a train at 5.45 would you really want to eat the sandwiches you'd been carrying around 7 hours later?

Snobbery? Cushy 9-5 job?
Whaaaaa??

I'm out of the house 11 hours a day for my '9 to 5' job. Half an hour to relax in any coffee shop sounds tempting to me.

Independent coffee shops don't necessarily equal good coffee. Most often they use a large supplier e.g. Lavazza, Pelican Rouge or Rijo. In fact, my first thought when I see an independent is, 'Are they going to serve swimming pool coffee?' - as in the cheapish stuff you might get at a leisure centre.

It's just breaking a habit and making a new habit stealth polar bear. It takes 5 minutes to do that, that you would need to shave from something else, like looking at mumsnet or going to a coffee shop. and there's plenty of other things you can have besides sandwiches.

You are jus refusing to see outside the habits of convenience and choice.

People have worked long hours and not been rich for many many centuries without needing convenience food to enable them to do it.

Remember the humble cornish pastie :-D

I think it's more the mindset than the actual realities of the situation.

When you are poor and stressed and too busy, you lack the energy and motivation to change habits.

That's understandable, and an observable effect of poverty.

Oh ffs. I am not making a packed lunch at 4 am to carry round with me for 7 hours. And I don't sit in coffee shops (or if I do because I'm early for my train I am usually workig).

This thread is pure snobbery. "Ooooh look at meee with my independent coffee shop, reusable cup and oodles of free time to make coffee at home!"

Not everyone's a rich SAHM or in a cushy 9-5 office job.

[it was meant to be funny, yes?]

Fair enough your choice. And like you said, there's plenty good street food and historical precedent for eating on the hoof. Just don't pretend it's not possible. Or, like little princess , pretend that it's only possible if you are rich

I didn't have a kitchen for a couple of years. Not everyone does.

I don't have time to make a "packed lunch" (would need to be three packed meals actually), I simply don't. And being disabled (walk with a crutch) it's simply not practical for me to carry huge heavy flasks and lunch boxes around, especially considering I have to travel and walk long distances every day. I can't imagine how massive a flask would have to be to last 14 hours!!

And really, why on earth is it remotely any of your business if I choose to spend £1.20 on a beverage?? It's utterly bizarre to me that I'm being lectured about lugging giant lunch boxes all over the country for 14 hours simply because people have some weird hatred of the extremely normal everyday act of buying a drink.

Yeah, I wish I had the luxury of being able to relax in a coffee shop too. Instead of having to eat breakfast lunch and dinner on the tube or walking between appointments.

But if it makes you snobs feel good to look down your perfect noses at everyone else, feel free.

I am actually in a very well laid job now, hence why I choose to spend money to make my life easier.

Why on earth shouldn't I? What gives you the right to judge me?

And yes I was joking, but some of you clearly don't have a clue about the realities of most people a lives. A 9-5 office job where you're in one location and sitting down all day IS relatively cushy compared to some people's jobs. And I'm betting some of you drive and have no idea what it's like to have to travel all over (sometimes 4-5 different places up to an hour apart every day) by public transport and walking.

Yes I see the typo. ;)

The chains are great as you know exactly what you will get.

Our local independant coffee shops use either instant/whatever watery shite they have to hand from the cash and carry or go to the other extreme and import beans from the Amazon rain forest and cost €8 a cup.

arguing on the internet about individual cases isn't going to be productive. And your day does sound very hard. I can see why you'd feel the need some convenience in it.

When I didn't have a kitchen I got a slow cooker off freecycle and used that to make stews and soups that I could put in a flask for meals out and about, And you can refill bottles with water as you drink them, you don't need to carry a whole day's supply. Also, would a back pack help with crutches?

anyway, good luck. Hope things improve, genuinely.

My local independent coffee place is shite, doesn't open until 9am and is very expensive.
There's one the next town over that I'll choose over a chain (it's actually a deli, and a bloody good one at that!)
Apart from that I tend to use starbucks because it's open at 7am!
I have a lovely reusable cup that works and doesn't leak. I bought it from starbucks actually!
For me, it's all about convenience. My choices at work are limited to nescafe. I bought a tassimo for my desk, but that tastes like shite too.
I'm going to try a nespresso on my desk next I think...
Anyone want a tassimo?

I actually do carry a reusable water bottle with me.

When I didn't have a kitchen I was living first in a B&B and then later in a 12-ft by 10ft bedsit.

I love my job a lot, and I have made a choice to work this hard in order to pursue my dream career. I don't have any regrets. But it's not really cool to be judgy pants over someone making use of small and pretty ordinary things to make life easier, when those things really aren't anyone's business and don't affect anyone else.

Besides I thought the thread was originally about choosing independent coffee shops over chains? Which I actually agree with on ethical grounds (I boycotted Starbucks over tax evasion), but it's all feeling a little bit ... hipster all of a sudden.

The independants in my area don't try at all, they simply attempt to trade off the fact that they are independant.

Cheap coffee at extortionate prices, making you feel uncomfortable if you enter within an hour of closing time, owners shrieking at you for minor infractions (I haven't experienced this myself but there are some brilliant TripAdvisor reviews!).

I stick to Costa as I know what I'm getting, I can take my pram in without fuss and I can sit with a book for 30 mins or more.

In fairness my ability to make my own lunch comes from a 9-5 job that I drive to in 20 minutes. I don't even leave the house until 8.30. Soup put in a flask at 6am isn't hot enough to eat by 1pm. It's also not necessarily what you want on a warm day.

I'm lucky enough to have a microwave at work so will usually have a carton of fresh supermarket soup, but frankly if I didn't I'd be filling a plastic Pot Noodle pot or down the bakery every day.

When we do go to somewhere like Costa it's a treat. I can't tolerate caffeine, DD is lactose intolerant. Unfortunately we've found the independents aren't great at dealing with our intolerances but the chains are. And are open on Sunday's.