New style M&S cafe

[Triflingjelly]

AIBU to not like the new style M&S cafe where you order at screens like McDs and then sit and wait for hard working waiting staff to bring your food. Stressful for customer and #runaround for staff. It all feels very impersonal. Bring back self-service. Is it just me?

Does no-one in the catering/hospitality world understand ambiance?

Granny's insistence on a flask of tea and a couple of buttered buns seems a little more sensible.

Agree, my mum wanted to go to the cafe at a newish M&S near her. Guiding her through to a seat was hard as every table was so close to each other, table was dirty. I didn’t have my reading glasses so ordering on tiny screen was challenging. Drinks were cold when the finally arrived and it took ages to get one thin napkin which I requested because my toasted sandwich was clearly going to be messy.

I won’t be back, it felt like a particularly noisy soulless service station experience

I think it's a real shame and another example of M&S not knowing their core audience. The cafe at our local M&S is roughly 70% elderly people - or elderly people being taken out by their adult children/grandchildren - and mums/dads with babies or toddlers. I've had experience of both (have taken my wheelchair-bound grandma and my DD when I was on mat leave) and having to use a touch screen would have been v unwelcome in both situations.

I know they're trying to cut costs but they need to hire more staff. Fair enough have the screen as an option for those who want it, but don't remove counter staff completely. All this tech is excluding people who are unable to use it.

For a lot of the elderly customers (not all, I know), the process of ordering at the counter is a welcome social interaction. It's the same with the introduction of self service tills in the clothes department at M&S. When I first had DD and was having an awful day, one of the sales assistants making a fuss of her while ringing up some new clothes for her was the only thing that me from bursting into tears. Contrast that with trying to restrain a wild toddler while trying to scan/bag clothes and remove security tags yourself...

@starfishmummy my DP is a wheelchair user. Works, goes to cafes and shops alone. In a cafe staff will carry your tray to a table.
Not all wheelchair users have to be accompanied at all times.
The lack of even basic disability awareness on this site is sad.

@MindatWork I agree M and S appear not to understand their core audience. During the week my local M and S cafe is also full of elderly people. Younger people happy to use phones to pay and self service screens use far trendier cafes that actually still have staff serving them.

DS has had staff in one cafe (not m&s) refuse to help carry his drink to a table. Another customer did and then had to join the back of the queue again because jobsworth on the counter wouldn't let them go back to the front.

@starfishmummy that is appalling. Trust me M and S cafe staff always would. Any decent cafe will.
I do not want my DP unable to go out for lunch when at work without taking a colleague along. Wheelchair users need to be able to be independent if they have the capacity. I do not want us to return to a time when people thought if you used a wheelchair, you should not be out alone.

Debit cards don’t get ‘hacked’.
Fake QR codes might be a problem, but not in M&S.

Don’t believe everything you read on Facebook.

I have never used facebook

Well where ever you are getting this tin foil hat stuff from.

Exactly, or treated like they have no brain.

Complaints were made to the place concerned about their refusal to help. Just got a stock reply about it not being their usual service and it had probably been busy.
But two once regular customers no longer go there.

The alternative to automating elements of the hospitality industry is customers have to pay more. There is also a real shortage of people to work in retail and hospitality jobs (and also sooo many other sectors, I know).
And as this thread shows, you can't please all the people all the time.
Cafes in shops like M&s are relatively recent. I am old! It will be interesting to see if they survive.

And that’s the rub.

Minimum wage is going up. If they employ more staff, or even replace the ones that are leaving, then they will have to put the price up. I imagine there will be just as many complaints if the price of a cup of tea went up by £1.

I totally agree with you - I absolutely hate these self serve cafes. I actually went to a really nice Italian restaurant in London the other day and they had normal service except for the bill, where you were meant to scan and pay it by QR code. Totally jarring and breaks the ritual of dining out, thanking the waiter etc. In the future human service will be a luxury.

I can't stand screen ordering. To be fair I rarely went to McDonalds but if I did it would be late at night after work when I wanted something hot to eat but had nothing to cook at home. The whole point of it was the in/out quickness off it.

A McDonalds late at night is not a pleasant place at the best of times but the whole screen thing makes it feel even more souless. it's like the last stop on the way to death.

The faffing about with the screens is just an obstruction in the speediness of it. I don't need to analyse a million different options to work out how to get a "what is available now to go meal deal". It's quicker to speak to someone.

I hate screens and wont use them. I've not seen the new style M&S cafe but I wouldn't go again if they have screens now.

I can see it working for cheap places like McDonalds. M and S cafes are not about that.
And every independent cafe around me has staff. Service matters.

I only pay cash in cafes

M & S cafes are not exactly high end. They are not much different to other chain cafes.

I find there’s a disconnect between the M and S ordering experience and their demographic - older people and older middle aged people.
Before the McDonalds machines, you’d stand for ages holding a heavy tray with nothing to lean it on a n exceptionally slow staff. Now the local one has got the McDonalds machines, it solves the waiting with heavy tray problem but it feels so vulgar. I’ve just not gone in, it’s so uninviting.

No. The alternative should be that they accept making slightly less profit.

It's all about greed.

Retail and hospitality are really struggling at the moment. They aren’t being greedy. They are making themselves more efficient and the vast majority of their customers will be delighted at no longer having to queue and then wait for their tea cake and cappuccino.

Margins in retail are small. Its survival not greed. High street shops are hanging on my the skin of their teeth.
I work in retail in a small independent shop and I know how difficult it is to make money in physical shops.

The can't keep staff , always advertising

Pre tax profits of £360m. They are clearly struggling to keep their head above water 🙄

Prioritising profits is no excuse for lousy service, and going fully touch screen will be inaccessible to much of its customer base.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/business/2023/nov/08/m-and-s-regains-crown-of-uk-top-womenswear-retailer-as-profits-jump

M and S profits are not based on their cafes. Read the article you posted.