To no longer enjoy going to starbucks, costa or cafe nero?

[slownova]

I was in town early this morning as I was at the Gym and then had to pick up on item from a shop that wasn't open until 9.30am. Years ago I used to love popping into starbucks or costa for tea and a bit of cake but I had a look in both and the cakes just looked a bit grim to me. In the end I just wondered round till the shop I wanted opened and then I went up the road to have a nice pot of tea and a homemade scone.

I still enjoy going to a nicer café with home baking and good quality tea but the appeal of places like starbucks, Nero and Costa as totally evaporated for me. I used to love getting some seasonal pumpkin loaf or ginger bread with thick buttercream icing or some kind of gingerbread / black cherry / peppermint hot chocolate but I just don't like it anymore. I also can no longer stomach hot chocolate and a cake and would have tea and cake or a hot chocolate preferably a dark chocolate one on it's own.

I do still sometimes go to costa etc if I'm meeting a friend or with my niece and there isn't anywhere else to go and sit but all the glamour it gone.

Why is that? Am I just getting old? My teenage niece still loves to go to Starbucks. I find it so expensive for what you get and the cakes aren't nice and I can make much nicer at home myself and I have better loose leaf tea which I can break out if I want a treat.

@BethBynnag86 I had similar at a Morrisons cafe. Bought a pot of tea from the screen then helped myself. No fresh milk but those little UHT cartons. I think I managed about two sips before giving up on it. It cost £1.95 and I felt very ripped off.

Coca Cola owns Costa and are now trying to sell it (at a loss from the £3.9bn they paid for it in 2018 - could go for as low as £2bn).

Shame they didn't ask me first. I would have told them it would be a dud having already gone off Costa and Starbucks ...

The only way to squeeze any value of of the brand will be to close a %age of outlets, hike the price in the remainder and flood the marketspace with countless tacky special occasion offers while waiting for the tax write-off to go through and trebles all round.

It's all part of the continuing theme of the decline of the High Street as it plays out. Exacerbated by the inability of commercial landlords to reduce rents.

I agree that it takes forever to get through the queues.

There was a Nero opposite my workplace a few years ago. It would seem like an obvious place to get a coffee at break time, but by the time the server had asked every customer if they had a loyalty card, if they wanted the specialty single origin coffee, whether they wanted an extra shot and then had to fish out the oat milk, it was time to get back to work before you'd even sat down.

I sometimes miss Italian cafes where you line up, order an espresso (no faffing about with extras or different types of milk) knock it back at the bar, pay your euro and head out. Someone on YouTube timed it and the whole transaction - from walking in, having your espresso and walking out the door - at under two minutes. Putting the express in espresso!

Not sure that the coffee house from 1688 is quite the same as "the coffee shop as we know it today", which was the claim. The WiFi was worse, for a start

You are not missing much without Black Sheep @slownova - there are tons in my city (ironic as their slogan is "Leave the herd behind") and the coffee is very similar to Starbucks, just on a differently branded cup.

Coffee from costa is just a mouthful of hot milk

Obviously, this is nonsense, unless you're choosing to buy that. They don't put milk in it unless you ask for it.

@slownova i don’t really eat a loaf of cake but the banana loaf in Nero is quite nice in my opinion. Don’t go to Starbucks or Costa as their coffee is rubbish. But I do get what you mean. Could it be an age thing? (🤭🤦🏽‍♀️). I only ask because as I got older I have become much stricter with what I eat as things don’t look as appealing to me - specially processed foods. I think it’s maybe our body saying no thank you 🙂‍↔️ I don’t want that rubbish.

You jest. But as far as I am concerned they were exactly the same. People would go to talk business, read newspapers and books (which were expensive, so shared around) and sample the latest exotic and conveniently un-Catholic coffee. Which is why the massive businesses of the 17th century - banks, merchants and insurers - all sprang from coffee shops.

The only real difference these days is customers talk bollocks rather than business.

If you want to delve into the history of English (possibly British if Scotland had any) coffee shops, they actually started selling chocolate drinks.

Of course when Britain invented India and tea, and it was so cheap (for us, less so American colonists) then we lost our taste for it.

You could probably get away with a huge Netflix series about the growth of London coffee houses. With all sorts of themes that a lot of ignorant people would accuse of being woke tosh. But the experiences of the free people of the slowly emerging Empire in it's capital is a playground for the imagination. If nothing else, some of the great dramas of the age -if not all ages - were played out on a stage of coffee grounds. Take the abolition of slavery for example.

E2A:Spelling

@Nothankyov It could be, I'd like to think I am more discerning now. I think it is also that quality has genuinely gone down hill and is continuing on that trajectory. When was growing up British chocolate was really nice but it's now full of palm oil, has less actual chocolate and has an odd texture is overly sweet and not as flavourful. Nicer dark chocolate versions of things like a dark bounty have disappeared and now everything is that new caramel / gold chocolate which isn't actually chocolate at all.

Its enshitification I suppose. I would now rather spend more on less top quality chocolate or go to the trouble of making my own cakes and treats.

When was growing up British chocolate was really nice

That's a forum in itself. Obviously not bad for the old waistline, but yes - UK chocolate is now nothing to write home about. Everyone raves about either obscure brands, or brands that sound posh and wanky, but are really the same thing.

Apropos of this I recently remembered "Old Jamaica" from my youth in a discussion with a friend who couldn't recall it.

For me all three are a bit grimey. I liked going to Starbucks when I was younger for Frappuccinos and Costa for hot chocolate. But these don’t appeal to me anymore.

I quite often have an offer with my phone company for £1 drink at Caffè Nero, which combines with my bank’s cash back to be 90p for something that is usually >£4. I’ll get one then. But otherwise, we have loads of great independents that cost about the same >£4 for a nicer caffeinated drink and also somewhere nice and well cared for to sit. Staff are also easier going.

Going back to the dinginess .... the whole backstory to Starbucks as a "tween" place meant they pushed a muted decor for people still getting up, or people who were winding down.

There is a whole field of science about the psychology of food and eating ....

I love a cappuccino but I won't drink at a place (and it's usually one of the big chains) where they wipe the outside of the milk frothing spout with a dirty j-cloth.
I also briefly temped at a place that sold, serviced and repaired the large coffee machines you see in the big chain places. Let's just say that if you have seen the inside of some of those machines that you would never drink coffee again.

Yes, same here, no independent coffee shops at all. I haven’t stepped into any of the chain coffee places at all for a good couple of years - I don’t miss them at all.

I did go to an independent tea shop in a picturesque village the other week. Their homemade cakes and scones were divine. I remember thinking that you don’t get this in Starbucks.

dirty, long queue and cakes are horrible. I go to an independent over one of those any day.

What really puts me off chain coffee shops are the uncleaned tables. Why would anyone want to buy a pricey coffee and have to drink it surrounded by dirty dishes? This has been the case in all the Costas and Starbucks I've been to recently. The staff at the counter are working flat out serving queuing customers, it seems to be a corporate decision to prioritise serving rather than cleaning. Even the most basic independent cafe wipes and resets the tables between customers. I tend to avoid the chains in possible.

I often go to them to get some work done on my laptop if I can't focus in the house. I love them for that purpose, I concentrate at my best for some reason. I normally just buy a cup of tea though.

But I know what you mean about not enjoying them as much as I used to for a cafe experience. I think for me it is entirely price based. The food is too expensive and unfilling to justify really, especially if we've been as a family (usually at a services) and the cost has really added up. I feel uncomfortable spending that much for what it is in these 'cost of living' times.

That said, I do meet friends in these and other cafes, and enjoy it still, but we do tend to just have a drink.

The independent cafes near me have tried to become more foody to increase the revenue per head, and they don't like it if you take your time or sit and read a book, they seem to want a higher turnover. There is one in particular that is quite pushy about it, and sighs and eye rolls if people just get drinks. Unsurprisingly, they are often very empty as a result.

I find myself preferring the chains for the sense of anonymity and lack of judgement. They're also a bit busier with a bit of background bustle, so if you're chatting with someone you don't feel like everyone can hear everything.

Nero coffee isn't terrible but the others are, I think. The cakes in all of them are deeply average and overpriced. The cafes themselves are usually grubby and untidy IMO.
I go to indies in my own neighbourhood, or Ole and Steen or Gail's if I'm out and about and can't find/don't know any indies (although some Gail's branches can be a bit grubby too; but the one near Tate Modern in London, where I go quite a bit after I've been to an exhibition, is usually neat and clean).

You could probably get away with a huge Netflix series about the growth of London coffee houses.
I would SO watch that.

I very rarely go to them. Exceptions will be motorway services or if I'm with someone who just really wants to go. I think the coffee is usually shit and the food is very bland and synthetic tasting. Its deadly expensive for what it is too. Even worse is that they're usually quite grubby and the service is generally shit.

There's a chain near work, next to a gorgeous little independent where you can get a very nice coffee, massive sandwich and snack for around £8 so it honestly baffles me to see the chain so busy.

I don’t really drink coffee anymore but when I did I’d favour Starbucks. I remember their carrot cake being nice but that was years ago. I’ll go to Nero if meetings friends as they do camomile tea. But I prefer a non-chain (as long as a herbal tea is on offer).
The baked goods always look grim in Nero though.

I didn’t know Costa and Starbucks were commiting Genocide

I outgrew the chain coffee shops in my late teens, almost 20 years ago. They were very exciting when I was 15/16 - I used to truant school and sit in them for hours reading books. I still remember it was £1.90 for a small latte.

I’m 40 and I’ve lost the interest too. For me it also feels like something to do with the body – my stomach just doesn’t handle most restaurant food or coffee shop drinks well anymore. I don’t know why that is, but I definitely notice it. Will be interesting to read the comments and see if others feel the same.