Machina Coffee - Marchmont Cafe — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

In a nutshell this place has really gone downhill specifically this branch. I suppose business,s like governments are shaped by leadership. I’ve been a customer here since 16 and the place used to be really nice to visit ; It seems plasuable that they might have had a different store manager then , certainly the staff were more attentive and friendly and well made drinks used to be the norm. , The last few times have been really the pits I’ve lost count of the times that they’ve ballse’d up simple orders or forgotten about my order completely. Unlike a bog standard Pret,s or Costa the staff can’t even bring themselves to apologies when they screw up, they just become arrogant and agresive like you,d expect from a bunch of yuppie kids who think their doing the world a favour by opening up and selling basic coffee drinks at a bankers premium as if it were a wine bar. Some guy even ripped me off 50p this morning through another simple drinks order foul up. He got really agresive and thought by raising his voice it made him right. the evasive manager just went on about the list on the tills a rigid and empathy free thought process could not yield to the posibility that the cashier made a Manuel error. Which semmed plasuable since he,d demonstrated how inept and unfocused he Was. I told them that I had counted my change and it was still 50p short with the refund. I would complain to the head hipster of the franchise but I think it would be a waste of time ,judging by the lofty arogence they evidently show customers these days. The drink quality used to be amazing but I would say with this branch that’s a historic accolade. So it’s not even worth sucking up the prima donna service anymore. obviously getting the basics right are not part of the fabric here unlike McDonald’s who on the current form of this branch serve up a better espresso based drink for a merry fraction of the price. Needless to say I won’t waste my hard earned money or time here again. It’s not exactly rocket science to get a drinks order right to serve customers in a timely and effective manner , well evidently it is here. Like something out of the pages of a Brett Easton...

Some of staff are up themselves and must be able to really smell the brown stuff and I don't mean the coffee of which they claim to be so passionate about. Been here a few times and the service is really slow in a directionless way, laced with passive aggressive hipster pretentious. On more then one occasion they completely forgot I was waiting for an order. Its as if elite bubble safe gentrified business society in Edinburgh , believe no one has to work , no one has to rush about to make a honest buck. Everyone's got the time for posh kids to suck your time and play with theirs playing at making quality drinks which involve coffee as if they were specially selected infants on a Blue Peter project. One quite mid week morning it took almost an hour for a cappuccino to get served. First I had to wait for the guy on the till and some aspiring film maker to finish having a non service related pretentious conversation and then take my order. Waited a couple of decades short of a full one during which I had the privilege of hearing a loud conversation from an nearby table of one of the snotty staff members harp on about all the top notch internships she was considering while weirdly but manically churning a sugar mixer, perhaps I wondered into a random episode of some Netflix series by mistake and not a real coffee shop. When I told the guy he'd got the order wrong he looked affronted that a pleb should dare to question the order of things. A few lethargic minutes elapsed and I was presented a cup full of tippid warm froth that used to be milk and a miserable shot of coffee. It was worse then Starbucks. No apology or consideration for the time of others a joke of a cafe like this would not last five real minutes in a real...

After a really strong start Machina has gone off the boil for us. It was a lovely new option in the neighbourhood when it opened and we enjoyed a lot of brunch and lunch with family and friends last year. But the coffee is often cold, you can't buy hot drinks towards the end of the day because the machine is cleaned before they close (but you're encouraged to buy cake anyway!) and yesterday, in total - but maybe thoughtless - innocence, I went to start a new loyalty card (left my two underway at home), the barista snorted and said we couldn't have a stamp for a £1 babyccino, which confused the three year old who had (bravely, I thought!) gone in and ordered his drink and added a lovely dose of public shame to the scene. I get the logic of course, the free coffee can only be justified with a minimum spend of £30-40, but it felt a bit measly not to give him the stamp - or pretend to - and explain the policy to me on the downlow. Luckily you can throw a rock in any direction in Marchmont and hit an artisan coffee but this was our closest and my son was really enjoying his grown up coffee house...