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?

Thankfully I have found good coffee available really early on my way to work.

If any of you find a Jacks Beans machine, all drinks £2, try it. It isn't bad at all!

And if I want posh, our local farm shop now has a proper cafe/coffe shop!

I have tried many different Costas, some have made the coffee just how I liked it, many have not and some I have had reason to complain about.

Eventually I gave them all up in favour of somewhere else, however that has also become incapable of selling me what I ask for so have given up buying coffee, which was a rare thing anyway, and a treat.

Starbucks is foul. As is McDonalds. If I want coffee I make it myself now.

I was really surprised to hear that they were cutting jobs. In my area they’ve expanded rapidly recently. They’re in both the town centre and the retail park Next shops and there’s 2 new standalone shops with drive through.

I work for a large supermarket chain and we’ve just been told the customer cafe is going and Costa is leasing the space. The lovely people who work in the cafe are being made redundant .

They've made great inroads into garages and all sorts of other unmanned spaces. So I imagine they won't be disappearing, just re working the business model. Maybe our one local Tesco will now get a decent cafe like the next one over has! Then again, the Tesco Extra one is dire!

A work colleague's wife works in one of the waterstones costas. At the start of lockdown she brought in loads of sandwiches, toasties and muffins etc for us as presumably they'd just get thown. We were all in full ppe for most of the day so they were a nice treat. The one she worked in was lovely, friendly staff who remembered what you drank, nice atmosphere, clean, even had its own book group, however the other 2 in town were grotty, always food on the floor, sticky tables. Sadly I've got a feeling the nicer one will shut because of footfall....

Not my experience op, my local Costa is great but I unusually went to a Starbucks the other day and it was horrible.

I'm always sad when I hear over a 1000 people are going to lose their jobs.

I tend to think they'd do better if they actually opened all of their stores. Ours is still only open for drivethrough and takeaway. We'd go there often it we could, you know, actually sit down and have a coffee in a coffee shop.

Used to absolutely hate costa but I’ve got to say working nights in a covid ICU March-June our hospitals little costa which stayed open 24 hours absolutely saved me.

Generally would always use an independent over any of the big chains.

I hate Starbucks. Crap tasting coffee and dark, depressing decor.

I hadn’t even considered going to a coffee shop since pre-lockdown - it’s just not a priority for me and I think with a lot of people worrying about losing their jobs they won’t be prioritising expensive coffee either. I also think they over expanded - there are multiple Costas in my town plus you can use their machines in sainsburys, the petrol station, the bowling alley etc etc. Over saturation of the market.

I haven't been to Costa for a couple of years but went yesterday. The coffee made me feel sick all day (oat milk honeycomb cappuccino), it was badly made, the man serving didn't listen to my order, and he also told me to move even though I wasn't close to anyone. It was as though they thought they were doing me a massive favour just by serving me crap!

Aww it's sad. My first job was at Costa. I became really good and would make loads of coffees at once, I knew all the regular customers and would make their orders upon seeing them walk through the door, and people would specifically request I make their coffee! I was only 17.

10 years on and every Costa I go to is as the OP describes. Staff squabbling (in 4 different stores I've been to) which suggests they are either chronically understaffed or unrestrained, or the staff turnover may be very high. Also yeah only making on drink at a time? When did that happen? Always seem to mess up my order too :(

I miss Costa.

I'm not surprised about any coffee shop chain having to close some outlets given the changing pattern of work and that at least some of it will be long-term.

However, I disagree with the OPs preference for Starbucks in that I avoid tax-avoiding businesses as much as possible.

Although I don't think much of their coffee (their iced drinks are ok) it is a million times better than the shit Starbucks serve. Theirs tastes like watery coffee that has been reheated about 10 times

I'm not a massive fan of Costa but we have a concession at the hospital I work at and the staff there have been fantastic all the way through lockdown and now, trying to deal with the increase in business and social distancing.

I don't mind their coffee and hate Starbucks. I much prefer a new franchises coffee to either. I have avoided them because they treat their staff like shit and have had two friends that worked there as managers who confirmed this.

My guess is they were dead on their arse long before COVID and are using it as an excuse to cut staff and don't care how this will affect their customer service.

I think the company have made loads of terrible choices over the years, and that’s all come together to produce a really terrible Covid costa experience.

The service in every costa I’ve ever been in is extremely slow. It can’t be the staff (as you’d get variable speed if it were), so it must be something about the processes required or similar.

Similarly every single costa I’ve ever been in is an incredible mess. Empty milk cartons, dirty containers and such like everywhere behind the counter. It really isn’t appealing to buy a coffee from a place that looks like a student kitchen.

The toilets are also generally utterly grim. I think it’s due to the company refusing to pay for proper cleaners or something. Regardless, it’s never nice. And you often have to get permission (a code) from the staff so you can use them. That’s never convenient.

And that’s describing the non-Covid costa experience. I can imagine it’s even worse now.

It’s dreadful for the staff who’ll lose their jobs. But it is definitely the decisions of people much higher up than those losing their jobs that have caused it. As usual.

My friend works in Costa and is having a nightmare currently. The place is full to capacity and then some every day, drive through queues overspilling to the next car park, they are still operating below normal staffing levels and trying to get the customers to at least pretend to observe social distancing is driving them all crackers apparently.
She’s not a bloody octopus - she can’t be on crowd control, sorting out the delivery, clearing tables, and making coffee all at the same time, which is what her manager seems to think she should be doing.
So the odd latte becomes a cappuccino or whatever. Then the abuse starts.
They aren’t paid enough.

Costa is so shit. I swear to god they served me a big cup of warm milk once. I took it back and asked if they’d forgotten to put actual coffee in it. No, apparently.

Oh and if you want a really shite experience go to Gregg's. The staff there were vile and had a go at me for walking to the counter the wrong way, when I was trying to stop my son walking in and touching the counter who went the wrong way. One of the staff then proceeded to talk loudly about me with another customer she obviously knew saying I was stupid and 'people just don't get it do they', basically like teenage girls would do. Could have quite easily asked me politely and It was a bit pathetic. I only went in Gregg's because the nicer bakeries had huge queues. I just found it bizarre that they thought that was acceptable.

The slowness drives me mad.
The last time I went in there were three people behind the counter. One person taking my order and money (who snapped at me for coming to the till ‘too soon’ before the other customer had completely gone), one person at the bar watching the transaction and one person talking to the other 2 about something irrelevant (!)

One of places my order, they had a discussion amongst themselves about it, and then the person making the drinks made them one at a time, loading them slowly onto the tray in that weird way they do, while the person at the till watched and the spare person carried on talking. It took about 10 minutes while I aged 10 years

Why do they do this?! No other coffee shop chain or independent fannies about this much. No wonder they are losing money, they probably put less than £100 worth of orders through an hour!

One of places = once I had placed

I feel sorry all those people are losing their jobs but I’d not be sorry to see Costa go off our high street.

I boycotted them two years ago when Coca Cola bought them out.

There’s no way I’m giving my money to a company like Coca Cola over my lovely independent coffee shops.

Coca Cola have been at the centre of a lot of controversy in South America and Mexico over the way they aggressively and falsely advertise Coke to poor people with no access to good dental care. Anyone see that documentary?

@AlexanderHalexander

Part of the problem is that as staff are often on minimum wage there is no incentive to serve up quickly. With the current system of minimum wage being "the wage" they will be paid whatever.

No one has told them - trained them - that they desparately need to get the customers through quickly.