Costa Coffee — Restaurant in England

I'm really disheartened to write this, but here goes.

My wife and I are now vastly reducing our costa patronage. We are going to restrict it to once a week now, 2 FW's a week, probably on a Sunday.lol. The obvious response could be, well sod off to Starbucks etc but for us that would never happen.

Our reasons are cost increases and no Internet.

We have 2 visits a day with 3 or 4 FW's each visit, between the two of us. That works out at about 6 to 8 flat whites each day of the week, or nearly 2900 a year paid for by us.

We run sewing courses and some of our clients will bring in 2 extra FW for us because they know of our addiction.lol. Therefore, my wife and I can easily have up to, 70 FW a week between us or 3600 per annum between us.

There is also the food. I would guess, and it is a pure guess, money wisethat we have possibly 6 Cinibuns, 4 muffins and maybe 2 to 4 toasties a week between us.

As you can see, we probably spend at least £,12000 plus each year between us.

We dont do anything else, no holidays, drinking, smoking, gambling, sports tickets, et al. We only drive around 3500 miles a year so no excessive fuel costs either.

It is a pure choice but the reason for this post is that our resteraunt Has increased prices 3 times since the refurbishment in May of this year.

A FW is now £3.95, up from £3.45 at the beginning of April, pre refurbishment.

There has also been no Internet for about 1 year now. You ask a question and you just get fobbed off as a head office problem. I may be wrong but I would guess that the cost of redoing the Internet cables in the resteraunt would come out of the store budget, therefore no Internet, more store profit.

Therefore, if we want to use our phones with our coffee we have to have a larger data package which costs money.

No doubt I'll get pulled by the manager, next time we go in as some staff,( who are extremely and stupendously wonderful people, all of them, ) read these posts.

I know its a first world problem but it is just so sad that the owners of Costa, purely think of customers as cash cows.

Anyway, we will definatly, save some serious money. Money that, as a tital, we were not aware of spending.lol.

Take...

UPDATE: 20.06.24:

The TGTG bags are a rip off. Not good value for money. I'm done with Costa now. It's always vegetarian and vegan rubbish (take the hint, it doesn't and hasn't been selling for a year if you're having to constantly put them in the TGTG bags!). Had a peach iced tea the other day. Usually made with lemonade. Cheaped out with water without forewarning.

UPDATE: 01.03.24:

OK.

UPDATE: 16.11.23:

Was very underwhelmed with this year's festive stuff. Couldn't taste any toffee in my sticky toffee latte, pulled pork sausage roll was nice but the pastry was extremely greasy and I could not taste any apple.

OLD REVIEW:

I've changed my review to reflect that I've now broken up with Costa, sorry.

I loved you guys but a new male member of staff transferred in and he did every single drink wrong. He'd put the wrong shots in, he'd forget to swap to decaff or skimmed milk. He got all of our orders wrong.

Then there was about a fortnight solid of everything being out of stock.

On more than on occasion I got stuck in a drive through queue, unable to exit after finding out you had nothing I wanted. When Starbucks are out of stock of an item, they cover it with an 'out of stock banner.' You guys don't put up any warning and then we get trapped in the queue.

I ordered the new beef and onion roll, out of stock every day, I asked for decaff, no decaff, no sugar free shots, no skimmed milk, no golden caramel cake, they even ran out of chocolate chips for the frostinos.

They blamed the delivery issues affecting the UK, but I don't buy it. Starbucks doesn't have these issues and the Costa branch less than half a mile away had a full golden caramel cake untouched. That branch is over the road and on the top floor of a Next store.

It was a nice few weeks whilst it lasted but I've started dating Starbucks again. Sorry.

The new rewards programme is quite generous, a free drink for every eight bought.

Plenty of disability parking and the drive through is easy to use and convenient.

Call ahead to make sure they have stock before you get blocked into the...

Been here many times and this review should be 5 stars, however today as I am writing this review, I have not just taken into consideration the product (Coffee), but have also taken in to consideration the messy workplace the staff are working in to give a true review reflection of my visit, as after all this is what reviews are supposed to do isn't it?

The coffee from Costa is the same everywhere you go so you know what you are expecting when you get served. 5 stars for this.

Today it was busy in this branch of Costa (Vision Retail Park, Hartlepool) and staff seemed very pushed for the duration I was there. This obviously led to corners being cut in terms of cleanliness on the floor and the coffee machines themselves.

The coffee machines were dirty, the floors were very unhygienic behind the counter with brushes and other things laid around, along with it being very dirty for the customers to see. (Pictures attached to the review).

Interestingly, the steamer for the milk was only wiped down after use for everyone, and no steam was blown through the pipe to expel any milk that may have gotten up the spout. My question would be what if someone had a dairy allergy and that spout was used after serving someone with normal milk and expelled some normal milk into their drink? Surely a clean short blast of steam for each use would sort this potential issue out?

The staff were polite and accommodating and I have found this on every visit to this branch of Costa so kudos to the team there.

Despite today’s visit being a kind of “scruffy” experience with Costa, I will be back as it is a handy place to conduct my meetings.

Perhaps Costa can invest in more staff resourcing at known busy times so the customer experience can be...