Costa Coffee — Restaurant in Colchester

Let me preface this review by saying I drink a lot of coffee from a myriad of establishments, but my go-to high street retailer is Costa Coffee. However, the Costa at Turner Rise Retail Park in Colchester is by far the worst I have ever had the misfortune of visiting. The staff of which I counted at least four, wandered around behind the counter in a dream with absolutely no sense of urgency or seemingly direction. The establishment I will add was far from busy, but due to the lackadaisical attitude of the staff, the well-observed socially distanced queue soon began to grow. After waiting 15 minutes, bearing in mind I was the third person in the queue, I finally got served. I will say, however, for complete objectivity that the woman that served me was at least polite, I will not pretend otherwise. The member of staff making the coffee was exceptionally slow. To call her a barista seems an insult to the skilled individuals who operate the espresso machine with such flair and panache as witnessed at many of the brands' other establishments. After a little under 25 minutes I exited the shop with two cappuccinos one of which that could only charitably be called tepid. So my advice would be to avoid this Costa at all costs if you are either limited for time or actually...

I’ve been using this costa for the last three days now and not once have I seen a table being cleaned when a customer leaves and before another customer uses it! I sat in there for quite a while and not one table was cleaned! Customer orders were all over the place and not following the order in which they were placed meaning social distancing didn’t work. Staff were more interested in laughing with their work colleagues than helping the queues of people. I witnessed elderly couples being refused a drink as they didn’t have a mobile to register with the covid app - they wanted a take away! Not many elderly people carry mobiles! That was so unfair! Some staff were asking if you’d registered with the Covid app, some didn’t bother asking! Based on this costa being within a hospital (also being used by doctors, nurses etc) I would have thought it would have been better run given the...

So we all know it's a a Costa. Costa is as Costa does. However, this is a really comfortable building with bright large open windows (not exactly much of a view, but good lightings at least). The staff are generally really pleasant and polite, always eager to help and will make sure you've got what you asked for. Try and avoid the lunch rush, if you're just out for a wander and a meetup though, as it serves a fairly large commercial area and can get pretty busy between about 12-2. Facilities are generally clean and accessable (though no adult disabled toilet facilities that I'm aware of) and the coffee is good (well, again, it's a Costa - you know what...