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?

Our local one is awful too, it’s part of a usually busy commuter station, dirty and service was v slow.

Pret near the station opens at X time, targeted to commuters, but never has coffee available until much later.

Much better service, in normal times and now, from smaller outlets.

Not surprised at all. There's too many of them and the experience is awful a lot of the time. I've found that I like the idea of going for coffee and cake a lot more than the reality of it.

I tried to go for a coffee a couple of weeks ago. First attempt was a Nero, stood for 5 minutes in a long queue only to realise it had barely moved and at current speeds I might have got my coffee after about half an hour if I was lucky and I had things to do, not that I wanted to wait half an hour for a coffee, so I tried the Costa on the same retail park, only to find the same thing. By now I'd run out of time and left it.

Next time I'm probably going to McDonalds because I like their coffee and it's half the price of Costa or Nero (we don't have any naice independents near us) I might buy a pack of caramel shortbreads from the adjacent M&S first because obviously McDs cake is not good.

I thinks it's very area dependent. My local Starbucks and costa are nice with super friendly staff which makes all the difference.

My dad is an ideal customer and goes three times a week.

I used to always pick Costa until about a year ago and I decided their coffee is disgusting. I don't know whether it changed or my tastes changed. Starbucks is my go to now.

Sorry for those losing their jobs, but we need far fewer coffee shops.
When did we become a nation unable to make a flask in the morning lol.
It's scary that some people work all day for nothing by the time they've paid to go to work.

Our local Costa never re-opened. Surprising, since it's always been full. Shame, as it's in the middle of the high street.

Their coffee is the worst on the high street imo

Not surprised. The coffee is fucking nasty. Absolutely tasteless.

That’s a lie. It has a taste. But it’s not pleasant. Kind of a burned bitter overtone through the weak watery flavour. Utter grim. It’s never clean here. The staff are hopeless and never get an order correct and the coffee is never hot.

I still go because the choice locally is Costa or Starbucks and I won't spend money anywhere that donates to Mermaids

Have been in once since re-opening, they have only the downstairs open and have removed lots of their seating. Probably operating at 25% capacity. Hardly surprising they're struggling. My local independent cafe has better coffee, much better cake and a better atmosphere.

I’ve had one since lockdown and it tasted different, been using local coffee shops and that’s possibly why. I go to them now. One of them makes iced lattes with frozen coffee ice cubes so much nicer

I've never had a Costa.

We have two branches nearby-different as day and night in terms of cleanliness and staff friendliness. The smaller, nicer one is as busy as ever, whilst the other one is empty.
Going out for coffee is such a bloody chore these days and people are much more discerning about where they go. Sad for the staff though.

It's probably mostly to do with them being predominantly city centre based where footfall is still low due to a lack of office workers and people avoiding shops, crowded places etc. Also, I think a lot of people are making more of an effort to support local businesses in these hard times.

Ah that’s a shame I always liked costa the best out of the chains. Starbucks has the worst coffee by far no questions asked!!

The Costa brand was bought last year by Coca Cola so I don’t know if that is partly why they are getting rid of staff. We have a Costa in or small town which is trying but is not friendly at the moment but one of the Costas in Bath - our nearest large town - was fantastic.

We stopped going before Covid as they had a couple of staff members who were unbelievably rude and surly.
I have no idea how they managed to get away with it.

I’ve avoided almost all chains since they reopened. It annoyed me that they stayed shut so long, taking the piss with overlong furlough. All the Independents were troopers, their products are better and I’m sticking with them.

Yeah, Costa coffee is vile compared to Starbucks'.

Sadly, we have a Costa and we don't have a Starbucks in our town.

Happily👏👍, we do have an independent which is fantastic and fun and friendly and the staff are great (especially if you're disabled), and the coffee's good too

I love my local Costa. It's always clean, the staff are always friendly, and they never mind if I hog a table for a few hours to do my marking (I wouldn't do it if it was too busy!)

A neighbour works there and says the franchise owners are lovely too, and much more reasonable about things like taking time off when kids are ill than places she's worked before.

In the town centre there's a Costa and a Starbucks next to each other. Even pre-covid both always had queues out the door, so I've never attempted to go.

Costa has always been revolting. Rude, slow staff, vile, overpriced coffee. If I want friendly, quick service and good cheap coffee I go to Pret. There's always one a few metres away from a Costa.

@KnobChops

I’ve avoided almost all chains since they reopened. It annoyed me that they stayed shut so long, taking the piss with overlong furlough. All the Independents were troopers, their products are better and I’m sticking with them.

I think this is area dependent.

My local Costa was open from fairly early on (take away only). The nearest two independent cafes have only opened in the last week or two.

I haven’t noticed them being dirty here, but I went to one for the first time after lockdown a couple of weeks ago and there were four people in line ahead of me and three staff behind the counter. It took me 40 minutes to get served. I don’t know what on Earth they were doing but two staff served each customer and the third polished an unused coffee machine the whole time.

Haven’t been to costa for ages

Did go into a starbucks in Brighton the other day (dh choice)

They yelled at us to say we were too close to the people in front (we weren’t, and they didn’t yell at the people behind us who were at least the same distance away) they also had a weird seating system where there was nowhere for the 4/6 of us to sit...it was tables for two or one

We left

The Costa branches near me (I think) are franchises. That said, Costa was one of the last (if not the very last) of the big coffee chain outlets to reopen after lockdown. Took aaaagggggeeeeesssss for them to reopen here, which clearly didn't help their bottom line. They should have reopened at the same time as Starbucks and Insomnia and others of the same type.
It's a pity as the one near me sells ok coffee and it just took so long to reopen that I found alternatives...so even now I'm buying less from them.