Small Batch Coffee Goldstone Villas — Restaurant in England

I feel very disappointed to feel the need to write this review but, I feel it is well over due. If I were rating the floor staff they would recieve 5 stars across the board. I regularly go in goldstone villas, norfolk square and the one by palmeria square and I can not rate staff on the ground highly enough however, it would seem they are having to deal with intolerable managment, whom sit in an office making decisions without consulting with or listening to the staff who experience the running of the establishment everyday.

First up, with the most recent change... a charge for oat milk. Honestly?! I first converted to oat milk when small batch did a promotion with oatly and offered a FREE coffee if I had oat milk. I have not looked back. For them to now charge for it. Madness!!

Recently small batch has become laptop free. Which from a money making saving perspective I understand, you cant have people sitting for hours with one coffee. However, small batch has always been a place where I like many others chose to hold meetings and do a few emails, as a freelancer, having this sanctuary has been very helpful over the years. Well obviously not anymore.

Who ever ordered the new tables and chairs obviously has never used a tape measure in their lives. They simply do not work in the space.

Artificial plants, urgh.

I wont even mention the over priced awful food.

I am so disappointed that all the changes have made the place worse not better but what pains me most is the fact that staff across the three different cafes have all voiced that managment DO NOT listen.

Well done. Your damaging your business and...

Tuesday 8th July 08:30am - 09:20am, by far one of the worst customer experiences.

Came in, asked for 2 coffees takeaway, waited the usual amount of time for the 1st, but the second delayed.

After the second person behind me in the queue was served, I went to the counter and asked to double-check what exactly I ordered. The original order confirmed. The second coffee is now on the way. Some mishap happened on the barista side and my drink came out wrong and was sitting there. Nobody addressed that I was standing in front of the service point, and when I approached I was ignored.

By the time it arrives, the 1st coffee was cold. So I go and ask for another, agreed to pay and went back to waiting.

After a while, a cappuccino is put out, so I go for it. One of the barista then tells me that it's not my drink. I tell her I've just paid for another. She then takes the drink ticket down and condescendingly explains in an aggressive manner that if I haven't ordered an ice latte then it's not my cappuccino.

I then sat down and waited until I knew I wasn't going to get chewed out for being patient.

Worked in hospitality for 5 years....

Sure, the coffee is quite good... but I sincerely wish the management would reconsider accepting cash as payment. I find tapping my card for such nominal amounts to be frustrating and difficult to track my spending, but the bigger picture is that not accepting cash is purposely excluding those who are most vulnerable in our society: the elderly, those without bank accounts, people who work in a cash-based industry. A cashless policy is basically saying to those individuals: 'you don't matter.' I asked the barista what percentage of customers ask to use cash as payment, and he replied about 10%... so a cashless policy is willfully excluding 10% of your customer base. I can understand during the height of Covid, but not reverting to accepting cash payments as restrictions ease just feels like laziness... as does the no laptop policy. Please reconsider these alienating new policies... reading other online reviews, your local client base is obviously unimpressed and now going elsewhere. As for me, I'll go to Costa who are happy to accept my cash.... and have no issues with...