Costa

[GinisLife]

£2.95 for a cheese & ham toastie !!! Cheap thin white bread, one slice of cheap ham and a sliver of cheese. And it's not even toasted on one side. It's still white, not brown. The hot chocolate isn't bad though I guess.

I second whoever said about McD's coffee. It's grand. Cheap and cheerful and does the job without the faff.

But really Costa coffee is properly gross! Weak and shite.

I actually quite rate Costa. The coffee is decent and reasonably priced. Where I live a lot of independents want the same money for something less good, or alternatively are hipster places where they want £3.50 for an espresso because they can tell you the name of the civet that shat out the beans, and where the service is terrible because the walking beard behind the counter is too busy flirting with students to get a brew on.

I don't think $2.95 is THAT overpriced, not enough to start a thread about anyway. I'm guessing you checked the price of it before you bought it and if it wasn't toasted enough to your liking you should have complained at the time.

I don't like Costa or Nero.

The best take out coffee I get is from Greggs (seriously!) and Starbucks is good too but none near me.

Pret food has given me crippling stomach aches twice!

I’m surprised it’s only £2.95 - I’m sure they’re more expensive in our local costa (I wonder if it varies depending on the area?)

This reminds me of my dm though “ooh....£2.50 for a cup of tea - it’s just hot water and a tea bag!” Yes dm, but you are also enjoying the pleasure of getting out of the house and sitting in nice-ish cafe, which is warm and has electricity with a waitress bringing it over for you and cleaning up afterwards etc.. I honestly don’t think this had ever occurred to her until I explained it!

That McD advert sending up all the chains and hype is just so spot on!
Microbububbles indeed!

Yabu to eat out then moan about it. Make your own food, go somewhere cheaper or stop moaning

My costa gripe is they made a big song and dance about starting to sell gluten free wraps and sandwiches and then withdrew them all.

But they're not going to continue stocking stuff that doesn't sell. It's just basic business sense.

While providing gluten free stuff is a great move for customers, it also needs to be beneficial to the business else there's no point stocking it.

If they’d sold well, they would still be available.

Costa is shit so too is Starbucks and all the chains....as for trying to make a profit...what a load of BS...I only go to small independent coffee shops, where they really are trying to make a living/profit and the food is usually made on site and far better than anything mass produced by these profit-greedy-don't-give-a-shit-chains

@ShesGotBetteDavisEyes I have stopped going for a drink with a friend because she will go into a coffee shop with me and ask for a cup of hot water to use with her own herbal tea bag because shes "not paying their prices for hot water and a teabag"!!

In (slight) defence of Costa, I quite often find myself in places I don't know with an hour or two to kill - quite frequently the sort of places where Pret hasn't penetrated. And I know I can get decent coffee, free wi-fi and (an admittedly not very nice but better than none at all) loo there.

£2.95 for a cheese & ham toastie !

I don't go to Costa but now I know their toasties are cheaper than every other one I've seen in the bits of London where I travel I'd be tempted. Put it this way, up until this post, I was positively excited to find somewhere near my main station where they're 'only' £5. (They're very good and the place has a nicer feel than Costa but that's a big price difference for nights when I'm stuck and the trains aren't running.)

Tbh a £2.95 isn't bad for a toastie. Average price where I am is a fiver 😳 from a cafe 😳😳😳

This is the one place Witherspoon's comes into its own. £4.50 for a toastie with chips and a drink. Can't be beat really.

Costa is the only place I've ever come across that do decaff tea.

And they pay tax, unlike Starbucks.

I want to try the Nero's Pork and Pancetta sausage roll. But not at £3.75! It's tiny.

starfishmummy that is truly shocking - your friend sounds tighter than a gnats arse! I’d better not tell my mum as she’d think it’s a great idea...(she also steals little packets of sugar from the cafe!)

That's really cheap! This story was just in the news:

www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/cheese-toastie-heathrow-airport-terminal-four-overpriced-sandwich-a9343846.html%3Famp

I get irritated by the fact that only one slice of the bread is toasted ... other than that though it’s nice enough

Think about the overheads for a company like Costa. Not only the store rent and staff but also head office, never mind advertising etc. I do agree they're shit actually, but if people are willing to buy them for £2.95 then that's what they'll charge.

It's true that most of the cost of cafe food is not food ingredients and for that reason I think that they should be better. If the ingredients are a very small part of the price then surely it would be better to charge an extra 2% - 5% and have a really hearty, nicely filled sandwich.

There is an independent cafe near me that uses good quality ingredients (eg free range eggs rather than cheap ones), has good sized portions and charges roughly the same as chain cafes, perhaps a tiny bit more. Their business is booming, people will wait in line for a table for 20 mins rather than go to the Subway or chain cafe that are literally next door. It's very short sighted of the decision makers of chains to believe that people either can't tell the difference between cheap ingredients or don't care, because given a choice a lot of people clearly do choose quality when they can.

I bet that the percentage difference between cheap and expensive ingredients is a lot less than the difference between sales of cheaply made food and quality food would be. They think they're maximising profits, but they're probably not.

I dunno about toasties, but I haven't been in Costa since I watched a member of staff wipe the loo and floor (disabled loo, so she left the door open, giving me a full view), and then use the same cloth to wipe the food/drink preparation surfaces... 🤮

Costa is generally a bit shit IMO. Pret do nice toasties. The tuna melt is my favourite breakfast.

£2.95 perfectly reasonable for a toastie. If you don't like the one they make, go elsewhere, it probably won't be cheaper.

£2.95 is cheap for a toasties out imo, to be honest for that price I wouldn’t be expecting good bread and nice ham.

The independent cafe in the village here does toasties and you do get nice ham, good amount of cheese, very nice they are. They are priced at £4.95

Eating out is always going to be more expensive than making the same at home, you really can’t compare the two.