Starbucks — Restaurant in England

UPDATE: 12.01.24:

Great food, drinks and service. Wish head office would fix the app though. Can't top up my account using Google Pay because of a bug in their update three months ago.

UPDATE: 20.07.24:

Things have been much better at Starbucks for the best part of the last year. Ethan is especially warm, welcoming and friendly. There are a few long term baristas now, who are really good at their jobs. The service and the food and drinks have been consistently better. So now my wallet is back to hating me again. They close a half hour earlier since the new year (now 8:30pm), but the decaf machine hasn't failed me in a long time! Back up to 5 stars and don't cheat on Starbucks with Costa!

UPDATE: 16.05.23:

They seem to have a load of new staff again, so drinks can be hit and miss. Ordered an iced caramel machiato today and was horrified it was 66% ice, for that price. No decaff, as usual.

UPDATE: 10.01.22:

Visited at 8pm, they're open until 9pm. 'Sorry we've turned the decaff machine off.' Umm...ok...I can't have much caffeine, and who wants a fully caffeinated drink at 8pm on an evening? They seriously hate their decaff customers here.

OLD REVIEW:

I have been visiting this branch for a few years now, and I had originally left a five star review.

However, I have had a lot of problems in recent months and so I've swapped to Costa, where the service is much better.

Over the last few months, this branch has regularly been out of stock of various syrups and on multiple occasions, they had no lemonade to make any of the refreshers or iced teas with. They charged the same amount to make them with water instead, and they didn't taste at all the same. They're a two minute walk from a Tesco, go and get basic Tesco lemonade :-/.

Other local branches don't seem to have these supply issues and neither does Costa, so I'm inclined to believe that it's an internal logistical issue rather than anything to do with Brexit.

The decaff machine is constantly breaking down though.

The staff attrition at this branch is ridiculous. Every week there's a new member of staff, so every drink is different and the service is extremely inconsistent - and usually not in a good way. There's one guy who makes beautiful drinks, but he doesn't seem to be in very often. He's very talented, but the other staff constantly make mistakes with the orders, even if I'm the only person in the drive through.

In the last few weeks alone I've been given multiple caffeinated drinks (I only drink decaff, skimmed milk and sugar free syrups as I'm intolerant of caffeine, literally one caffeinated drink will give me palpitations!), the wrong syrups (hazelnut sounds nothing like vanilla), on two occasions I've been handed frapps instead of lattes and brownies instead of muffins. The staff very often make mistakes.

The service is awful, I think possibly because the staff are constantly being replaced so you seldom get someone experienced.

I don't know what the problem is with this branch, but I've gone...

I find Starbucks to be middle-of-the-road out of the chains - worse than Nero, better than Costa, except for Christmas when Costa easily becomes the best. I have MANY issues with Starbucks but it does have the best chai latte, probably best food too, out of the chains. Basically, the coffee shop is good at everything but coffee, especially avoiding taxes but I digress… The rare occasions I do come here, I just go to the drive-thru as sitting in would give me a headache. I can’t overstate my hatred for Starbucks interiors. Modern minimalism at its very worst. So clinical, dreary, uninspired, soulless - at least it’s fitting and consistent with the company itself. This location specifically is alright - been to better, been to worse. Staff are quite hit and miss, both in terms of friendliness and quality of the drinks. Fine for every now and again but I urge you to not make this your go-to. It’s more important than ever that we support the far-superior independent business that actually have passion, character, heart, soul and skill, not to mention actually pay their fair share, and treat their staff well instead of just playthings for the...

Visited here for the first time in a long time with my friend for a coffee date and catch up. Sadly, we won’t be going back anytime soon and it’s also put us off bothering to go to any of the other local stores too. As soon as you walk in it’s just so scruffy and dirty, the floors filthy and needs renewing. The seating is all hanging on by a thread most of the chairs are ripped and threadbare and if not there’s next to no cushioning left in them. And it was freezing! We ordered to sit in and still got our coffees given to us in cardboard take outs and there was one single sign about the parking my friend had to walk around the store to find it to figure out how to register the car as there’s a sign when you walk in saying something about a tablet or something which doesn’t exist …. I’d honestly rather drink coffee at macdonalds ! That’s saying something ! We will stick to Costa and Tim Hortons from now on, where it’s clean, warm, comfy and you at least get to drink out of actual ceramics and sit in seats that don’t look like they are...