To not be suprised AT ALL about Costa?

[AlexanderHalexander]

Couldn't see another thread on this, despite looking.

www.theguardian.com/business/2020/sep/03/costa-coffee-to-cut-1600-jobs-as-covid-19-takes-toll-on-cafes

I go for takeout coffee quite frequently. Since lockdown I've been in Costa twice, both times it was so stressful, rude staff barking orders, being shouted at across the store for standing 1 inch to close to someone in the queue (despite standing on the markers!). The staff were slow and made one order at a time, meaning loads of people left the queue. And you could only get somewhere to sit once you had your FULL order, really stressful with children.

I've been to Starbucks and it's really chilled, smiling staff and no stress despite loads of customers, people served quickly.

AIBU to think Costa has handled the post-covid return badly, and not to be surprised their revenue has plummeted?

I love their coffee
I miss going for coffee. :-/

Starbuck coffee is awful :-(

Been in a few - all were very slow service and havn't found a coffee I like from them. I just want a bog standard black coffee. I find Greggs and McDonalds far quicker and more pleasant taste. Costa is far too bitter.

Costa near me is always dirty. The toilets are disgusting. The coffee tastes of sour milk and there’s so much milk in each drink. I gave up using Costa years ago. I’d rather go without.

I love Costas, but haven't been in one since lockdown started. Partly because I was furloughed, and lost a LOT of my income, and partly because my regular Costas (in a garden centre near me) still hasn't re-opened.

There are other open Costas around, that I could have gone in, but I just haven't been that bothered.

And, in any case, actually you can make a judgement about a chain based on one shop. If that shop is dirty, gloomy, staffed by slow, grumpy people selling poor-quality products, you can definitely make a judgement about the wider chain.

There are 1,600 Costa's so you're talking rubbish.

There are 1,600 Costa's so you're talking rubbish.

Me and most of the posters on this thread, I guess. You're rather cross for so early in the morning. Maybe you should reduce your coffee intake.

I think all coffee shops will be making cuts.

Unless your wealthy as a customer.. I went to my local Costa and I actually realised that coffee/hot drinks & a cake is a expensive habit I didn’t need to take up so often since being in lock down.

Costa do an amazing banana loaf though.

That and the tired, dated decor, filthy tables and floors and insipid coffee..
My local Costa is only about 2-3 years old yet still had a re-vamp last year when loads of them did.

I noticed it didn't open when it could have done and has only opened in the past few weeks. They have taken out most of the tables and are using 3 ... .which are still as close together as before. At another branch, it was full so we couldn't go in.

@Neversayn1

I think all coffee shops will be making cuts.

Unless your wealthy as a customer.. I went to my local Costa and I actually realised that coffee/hot drinks & a cake is a expensive habit I didn’t need to take up so often since being in lock down.

Costa do an amazing banana loaf though.

And the experience isn't always that nice. As I said upthread, I like the idea of 'going for coffee and cake' a lot more than the reality and nearly all of the time I do it, I wish I hadn't bothered.

I imagine going in getting my nice coffee, cake and sitting in peace for a while I read my book and enjoy said coffee and cake.

But in reality:

Glacially slow service so you stand in a queue for 10/20 minutes while nothng seems to be happening.

Confusing menus and being made to feel like a nuisance if you don't instantly know what fits what you want from how they name their products. It doesn't help that what I want is a medium sized, reasonably strong coffee with no foam. I don't think any of the coffee shops really do this. I also want it properly hot so have to remember to ask for 'extra hot'.

Rude counter people trying to upsell on the size and syrups which I definitely don't want.

Then there are hardly any tables free and those that are haven't been cleared or are next to the toilet or the door so are drafty.

The table is right next to other people who are inevitably of the 'talking loudly and never pause for breath' variety so not a nice peaceful break.

Why is this such a popular activity?

In future I'll definitely just get the coffee from McDonalds and sit and drink it in the car.

My local costa (not closed as the building is being redeveloped) was always full of groups of elderly men sitting there for hours on end not spending a lot. I don’t kill now how they kept open as they were never busy. I didn’t like the coffee either!

I haven’t set foot in a Starbucks or Pret for ages. Nero coffee is ok - but not very nice. I prefer my own brew!!

I think it depends on area. We have a lovely big new Costa - always spotless, lovely staff. I agree the standard coffee isn’t great but I always pay the extra 40p or whatever for the better blend and it’s always very good and I am a complete coffee snob!

My parents used to call costa "Costa-fortune"
As I said I rarely use it because a) it's expensive and b) I dont drink coffee but I do feel worried that if companies this huge are making such job losses it really doesnt bode well for the economy.
While it's nice to support independents I see the need for both large companies and indie shops. Lots of people always seem pleased when a large company goes down, and ignore the impact of thousands of job losses. It's not the CEO who will feel the pinch first....they will have probably already got involved in something else.
I am part of a small business and I do support small businesses and independents but I feel there are benefits to both large chains and one off indie shops, I think the job market would be way tougher without retail/hospitality chains

I prefer neros but costa would be my 2nd choice

I like the idea of knowing what I’m getting if I’m in a different town, but there are too many of them

The local town has 4, even the village i live in about 3 miles Away from the town has 1

All of them seem clean though...and generally helpful

I feel the rage in Costa!

Ordering 4 hot chocolates takes too long and all the foams gone by the time I sit down. So I ordered their syrups online and make them at home instead - so much cheaper, plus they’re hot and foamy!

Is is slow getting a coffee, quite often we’ve not had a 2nd cos we’d be too long in the queue

I like Costa as they put tea in a teapot, not just a teabag in a mug. Also I have a friend who only drinks their coffee. Staff here are lovely.

I also support independent hot beverage establishments as I usually meet people in cafes, but my favourite one with good cake closed pre-covid and a lot of independents here have cut opening hours so nothing open after 4 which is a pain if you are working till 5.

Tea in a teapot, with free hot water top up if requested, should be a given in any café. And fresh milk in a small jug. Completely unacceptable to charge £2+ for a teabag in a single cup of hot water.

Coffee requires a very expensive machine to make, plus the beans cost far more than a single tea bag, so I can see where a lot of the cost is, but if you run a business that sells tea, you should at least make the slightest effort to sell a half decent cup.

I think it varies a lot depending on the staff in individual branches. I've had mostly good experiences at Costa and there's one branch in my town where they know me and are particularly friendly. I don't agree that the coffee is awful, but I think Caffe Nero and Coffee 1 have slightly better coffee (I only drink black coffee so it's really obvious if it's too weak or otherwise not nice!) Starbucks coffee is the one I really don't like the taste of and I have had a few experiences with rude or inept staff there too (not all in the same branch). My favourite café at the moment is actually a local one run by a Russian family. They score well on coffee, cakes and friendliness although I think they are a bit expensive relative to some other cafés.

Having said all that, this:

being shouted at across the store for standing 1 inch to close to someone in the queue (despite standing on the markers!)

would actually make me feel quite reassured - I've been in some shops and cafés where nobody seemed to be making the slightest effort to police social distancing and I had to hold my breath sometimes as people just squeezed past with no consideration at all! Again, this might be different from branch to branch, but this report is making me want to try Costa again, just because they are being responsible. My DC are older now and don't usually come to cafés with me, so I wouldn't have the problem with bagging a table, but I do appreciate that would be a big problem with younger ones.

I had a bad experience with Costa since they reopened, staff being rude, saying they couldn't allow 6 of us to be sat together, but we are from 2 households which is allowed. My friend had similar at the other branch in our town. We used to go quite often but we won't be any more.
Our Starbucks has been the total opposite and usually we don't go there but we will be going there instead of Costa in future.

1600 people about to lose their jobs and a 4 page thread babbling about which chain coffee is the nicest. Class.

Yes. The lack of empathy on this thread is really sad to see. I really feel for everyone losing their jobs in the deepest recession we've seen for many years.

I haven't seen anyone on this or similar threads being pleased to see anyone losing their jobs. No-one is dancing on the grave of employment.

I've been there, it's utterly shit and, I should imagine, a million times worse in a huge economic slump. But large numbers of people have had time and space to take stock of what they're actually doing every day, and they've seen that not only are some things bad and need to change, but CAN be changed. When you're on the hamster wheel of school run/commute/work it's not hard to see that you put up with something less than ideal for the convenience.

Throw in reduced incomes and people trying to find small pleasures when so much of normal life has been taken away, and it's understandable that people aren't going to put up with crap products and rude customer service in a generic chain run by a global behemoth. Indies can flex - one of my local coffee shops has become a store selling 'foodie' stuff and local produce including fresh bread, and you can order patisserie from a local baker to go with your takeaway coffee - but the big chains either can't or won't. People have, to a certain extent, become more discerning.

I feel genuinely sorry for people who will lose their jobs but if you want to be angry, be angry at the big chains that have vastly over-expanded in a desperate land-grab for market share to look good on the balance sheet when the company gets flogged on, who rely on fragile business models designed to maximise their own revenues, and who couldn't give a toss about their staff or customers.

👏🏾 at @BrightYellowDaffodil

Excellent post BrightYellowDaffodil

Anyone feeling sorry for the staff/owners of small cafes that had to close when a Costa or Starbucks moved in next door to them and took all their trade? What goes around comes around.

I feel genuinely sorry for people who will lose their jobs but if you want to be angry, be angry at the big chains that have vastly over-expanded in a desperate land-grab for market share to look good on the balance sheet when the company gets flogged on, who rely on fragile business models designed to maximise their own revenues, and who couldn't give a toss about their staff or customers.

This x1000.

Recently there seems to be some creeping idea that ordinary consumers have a moral obligation to keep huge multi-national businesses profitable. We don't.

If you are a company that provides goods or services, and your customers decide - for whatever reason - that they no longer require your goods or services to the same extent or at all, unless you can change your business model you will not survive. It's a fact of business life and it's not un-empathetic to point it out.

Businesses exist to serve customer needs and wants. Not the other way around.

We have built an economy on sand, frankly; almost entirely on service industries that will come and go as technology changes, as customer needs change. The pandemic has shone a huge spotlight on all of this and it's fucking awful for the people who will lose their jobs because of it but it's not my job to support businesses that no longer suit my needs.

And I speak as someone who spent years working for a chain of book stores that was completely wiped out by the rise of Amazon. So there's no gloating here, just realism.

We have built an economy on sand, frankly; almost entirely on service industries that will come and go as technology changes, as customer needs change. The pandemic has shone a huge spotlight on all of this and it's fucking awful for the people who will lose their jobs because of it but it's not my job to support businesses that no longer suit my needs

^^ This. Especially not by encouraging irresponsible spending on overpriced fripperies when many will see their own income reduced or lost and the best they can be doing for their own finances is reigning in unnecessary spending, so they can still pay their essential bills or at least delay the moment that they run out of money as much as possible.

Having dozens of coffee shops in every town was never sustainable and has only been propped up over the past decade by very cheap debt so was bound to come crashing down sooner or later.