Is your M&S cafe rubbish?

[Bloomburger]

Because ours is. Went in for a little before going back to school treat with Dd.
I think they have low water pressure or the slowest machines in the world or perhaps just staff who don't understand that when they have a queue they need to move faster.
The young lady who nearly served us today insisted on calling everyone dear which the oldies might have liked but it just felt weird to me.
There were no little pizzas or any sort of kids juice that wasn't the bloody awful Percy pig juice, I say bloody awful as DD is allergic to something in it as it make her throat itch.
So we were nearly served. I put a toastie, a pot of apple and a satsuma on my tray thinking surely at 12 noon on a busy Friday they must just not have stocked the fridge but no, apparently no other sort of drink for the kids meal and no pizzas, so just a ham and cheese toastie (DD doesn't eat meat) . I asked the young lady if they just hadn't been put out and she went and looked for me but no, nothing, no pizza, no meat free sandwiches and no juice of any other kind (shop full of the bloody things downstairs). This is not unusual, DH and I used to pop in there later in the day on a Saturday for coffee and a cake but we ended up giving up. Nine out of ten times they had no cake left. It's not as if it's not opening again the next morning. We weren't the only ones who were a bit but if you asked them if they had any more cakes they were always a bit sniffy and said no. It's not as thought they are closing for a few days and any cake will spoil overnight or god forbid they earmarked enough cakes for the footfall at the weekend.
Plus the amount of staff they have behind the counter for the actual work that gets done, there is always at least 5/6 people but it doesn't seem to speed up the proceedings.

Just wondered if they were all like this?

Local one to me is slow, much more efficient in the city centre. I’ve generally found them stocked.

'Oldies' is a horrible expression - ageist too!

Yes ours is painfully slow too, I can never understand how with the amount of staff they have serving that the queue gets as long as it does whilst somewhere like Neros has maybe only 2 serving but are soo much faster!

Out of town Simply Food one is generally ok but not usually busy.
City centre one is utter chaos, queue for food, then drinks & then to pay. Oh & then try to find a table amongst the sea of white haired old ladies....not ageist just an observation!!

Rollonoctober ours used to always be heaving, never seems to be now I think that speaks volumes.

I marvel at slow cafes. How do they not realise? There’s a cafe at a tourist attraction near me that’s popular all year round. And yet every time I go in, they sort of blink slowly at you after taking your order (something complicated like “an Americano and a cappuccino to take out please”) and then set about determining from first principles how to deal with it. Like, what is coffee? Where is water? How does cup work? I mean, it’s hilarious when you’re not in a rush but my god it’s stressful to watch too.

I was once behind a man who was - through no fault of his own - working the lady on the till into a flap about meal deals, and how he nearly had the right stuff for one but not quite, but was making him sort of guess by elimination what he could have (“oh no, not the CHEESE sandwiches...”) and in the end he snapped “please can I just pay for what is on my tray!” and she got all pursed-lips at him when she’d started the whole pantomime in the first place! He didn’t even want a bloody meal deal!

Aw I'm heartened to know it's most M&S cafes and not just ours. Felt almost aggrieved that it might just be me!

Almost every post seems to describe the same sort of problems.

Maybe Mr/Mrs CEO of M&S you could employ us Mumsnetters to mystery shop in your cafes then actually implement the changes.

Asked for a bacon roll with no butter-that is not possible apparently. So DS couldn't have one when we went in for breakfast. DH could not have mushrooms added to his either.

That said though I love going for a coffee on my own. I avoid busy times, the place is always spotless, the staff albeit a little slow are very nice, and if you can get a seat by the window that's a bonus.

The one near is is good. Understaffed and the people there work hard. Most of the clientele are older and come in almost every day.
If you have an issue write to management- especially about lack of appropriate food. The staff in the cafe have no power.

I gave up on mine when I realised I was cleaning the tables more frequently than the staff, including clearing tables near mine when elderly folk needed to sit down.

Ours is very poorly managed, we don’t bother going anymore.