To think £2 for a babycino is extortionate

[Prrambulate]

The lovely independent coffee shop near me has raised the price of its babycino from £1 (already steep imo) to £2. Babycino in this case = an espresso cup of frothed milk with a dusting of cocoa powder on top.

This place has a selection of toys in a dedicated corner so lots of parents tend to go there to unwind and have somewhere their kids can play for a short while. I sense the business opportunity here but it also seems exploitative to me! Especially since their usual coffees are all at the £3 - £3,50 range.

Working up the courage to complain…

A babycino isn't a gimmick. It's a humourous name for some hot milk for toddlers. If you'd rather buy your toddler some sugary drink, or give them the froth off your own coffee, or nothing at all, that's up to you but £1 (or even free in many places) for a healthy drink that the child really loves is a bargain in my eyes.

There is no need to buy these for children, bring them their own drink.

There’s no need to buy any drink in a cafe - just take a thermos and sit in the park.

Most kids I know seem to like having their own hot drinks

Bit rude bringing your own drinks to a cafe.

And I like sitting inside sometimes. Happy to pay for that.

My favourite local coffee shop had to introduce a minimum spend per head because of large numbers of parents meeting up, taking up all the tables and making a coffee last an hour. It doesn’t take a lot of that to put a cafe out of business.

In the mid 90s when I had a job in a fancy cafe/ brasserie, we were the first people in town (and as far as we were concerned, anywhere!) to serve a babycino. We thought we’d made it up 😃Anyway, we made them for free. Was very disgruntled when MANY years later, when I had my own children, I discovered everywhere charges for them!! £2 is daylight robbery! But you do have somewhere for the kids to play so….

TIL people are charged for babycinos. I’ve never paid for one whether I’m in a chain or an independent. Comparatively, £2 is more than robbery, it’s murderous!

Because bean to cup high quality coffee will cost the business a hell of a lot more than milk!!

@Meowandthen ummm you asked if people were actually expecting these for free and I explained that no, I (as someone who knows they are provided for free and therefor brought it up int he thread) thought the doubling in price was a bit much. And OP wasn't expecting them for free either, she just objected to the doubling in price in one go? Not sure what I've misread in your post?

@Perhapsanorhertimewouldbebetter my daughter loves the idea of a drink like mummy, with a fancy name like mummy. I don't order a BABY Chino. I order a babycino, like a cappuccino, one quick word and they sound similar.
Just like DD has sunglasses that look like mine, because she likes to look like mummy. I sense your thorough disapproval that I should indulge such frivolities with DD, but it makes her happy and we have fun together. Thats all I really care about. If it helps she also attends forest school where she gets thoroughly muddy and filthy four days a week, and spends her allotted time playing with suitable wooden toys (and a vast quantity of plastic tat 😂)

Frankly I'm amazed you find it so utterly unbelievable that a 3 year old would enjoy drinking a drink with a name like mummy's drink, that she likes, in a nice coffee shop whilst doing something fun together. It's not the only drink she likes, or the only way we spend time together ... but I don't think she's particularly unique in this.

@ShoePalaver it IS a gimmicky name.
@zaffa it is a baby cino, even if you say the baby part fast.

Buy what you like with your money obviously.

Yes, I also think this is way, way overwrought. It might be the kind of letter you'd write to your landlord, when they wanted to double the monthly rent of the place you've lived in for 15 years; not for quibbling £1 rise for a drink at a place that you can got to any time or never again, completely your choice.

It's like you'd believe that your regular babycino purchases were singlehandedly keeping the cafe afloat, and you therefore consider yourself to be some kind of major shareholder! It's so patronising and belittling to try to force the business owner to justify to you the minutiae of how they run their business - that is entirely their lookout, whilst it's entirely your prerogative to take away your custom any time you wish, for any reason.

Considering that the standard price of a single bottle of still water from anywhere but a supermarket is usually anything from £1-£2 - for you to grab it from the fridge/shelf and take it away to drink off the premises - I'm amazed that anybody would grumble at a drink in a cafe, that also offers a play area, toilets, a table to sit at, warmth, maybe wifi or phone charging, costing just £2. No commitments or restrictions; they're there for whenever you want them and that's it.

You can look at it as a 100% increase, which indeed it is; but it's also just an extra £1. Percentage increases don't really make a lot of sense to overanalyse with very low-cost items. Didn't lottery tickets double from £1 to £2 overnight a while back? All to buy a dream and the most infinitesimal chance of any worthwhile prize, but probably nothing at all. Compared to that, £2 for a guaranteed drink and pleasant atmosphere to spend some of your day in is an absolute bargain!

Just take a sippy fgs. What an absolute waste of money. This thread has everything the DM love.

MN Cost of living crisis: My babycinos are SO expensive 😭😭😭

What, so the cafe are still expected to provide all the amenities for people who begrudge paying a couple of quid to keep them viable and instead want to bring their own drinks in? We're not talking about actual babies here, are we, but children who are at least old enough to have a proper drink bought for them.

The reasonable thing to do would be to decide that the pricing structure of what is offered by the business no longer gives you what you consider good value and just stop going there; anything else (other than maybe letting your little ones go thirsty whilst mummy enjoys a nice drink) is brazen and shameless CFery.

Their coffee is horrid too.

Meh. Just don't buy it. If demand drops, they'll re-evaluate their pricing. But if you can afford it I would support an independent cafe. They won't be making a fortune off 2 pound baby 'coffees.' If you can't afford it - then just bring your own.

People have been failing to understand that the cost of the ingredients is the smallest part of the price for years.

See the 2016 article

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2016/jan/14/is-2-a-fair-price-for-a-cup-of-hot-water-and-lemon

I can absolutely see that the cafe needs to actually profit from the children who go in since they have a theme (young child friendly) that likely actively discourages a lot of customers.

Personally, I’d take one look at that play corner and go elsewhere. I like to read a book in a corner if on my own (which I usually am) or chat to one or two people if not. I’d never complain about loudly playing children in a cafe like this - it’s obviously designed for that but I also wouldn’t stay.

There’s really not that much difference between the cost of the coffee and the cost of the milk.

Ingredient cost of good quality coffee: 8p per cup

Ingredient cost of 120 ml of milk: 6p per cup

http://www.howtostartacoffeeshop.co.uk/milk-and-coffee-cost-example.html

OP - you’re being unreasonable (as reflected in the votes) and sound very entitled. Like many PP have said, don’t buy the bloody babychino if you think it’s extortionate. Find somewhere that gives them for free if it matters that much to you or you can’t appreciate the cafe is running a business not a crèche. Can’t believe you are seriously “working up the courage to complain”…just don’t order the coffee or go somewhere else! This is a complete non-issue, stop trying to make it one.

A good chunk of the YABU voters seem to think I was foolish for ever buying them in the first place, and that the obvious solution is to bring my own drinks for my child from home! So their ability to identify entitlement is clearly compromised.

Another group of voters simply have a visceral loathing of the word babyccino itself.

There have been some sensible voices in the midst of this discussing costs and so forth.

It is not a charity though

We get the dogs puppycinos at our local coffee shop as a treat. We are not falling for a gimmick or being gullible, we know exactly what we are getting and choose to enter into the transaction as it makes the dogs very very happy.

But OP, no you should not complain about the price, if you don’t like it you don’t buy it. I find, say, designer clothes shops too expensive but I have never wandered in and lodged a complaint about it.

TIL that there is such a thing as a puppycinno. Will need to work this word into my next thread title.

I do get the point (and I don’t think I’m going to say anything!) but I feel like the comparison don’t fully work. Imagine if any restaurant or cafe you go to doubled the price of an item you regularly buy. Wouldn’t you raise any eyebrow at least?

For a first time customer of the place it’s just about the price itself of course.

What is TIL?

You presume wrong… Costa coffee is like dishwater. No idea why it’s so popular.

And before I’m inevitably accused of being a snob - Starbucks is ok, but Nero, Leon and McDonalds are much better.