Coffee Base — Restaurant in Harlow

I don’t really do reviews but couldn’t resist this time after the experience at Coffee Base. About a week ago I ordered a coffee to go and I was handed a cup fully filled the way that by the time I got it in my hand it started spilling on my hand. I told them at the time that is not a good way of making a coffee as that can cause a burn. Also that coffee wasn’t even black because of amount of the water. The owner who witnessed it asked them to make me another coffee in smaller cup and not to fill it up fully. Yesterday I ordered another coffee from them specifically asked them to make it in the smaller cup and not to fill it to the top. Again I was handed a cup filled to the very top so by the time I grabbed a cup, it had spilled on my hand. I asked the woman who served it that she made a mistake as this hasn’t been done as my request. I was told that they are trained to make coffee that way. All staff become very rude towards me. Eventually I was given another coffee by one members of the staff. I was seating at the table with my friends and they all were shocked seeing how that was served to me. The employee just put a cup on my table in front of me (almost throwing it) without a word and walked away. Another member of staff had thrown my first coffee to the bin with anger. What an attitude towards your customers. No word of apologies at all from anyone. The chef got involved as well. I was glad to see him as he made my mind not to eat there at anytime looking the way he looked wearing filthy clothes. I wouldn’t be brave to eat something prepared by that person. On top of that he was very rude and asked me before I left if I liked my coffee now in ironic way. Unbelievable how those young people treat customers. They need a good training otherwise the owner will keep loosing her customers. We usually come to have a meal in large group of friends as our kids play football locally so it was quite convenient to pop in. Not anymore. I rather make coffee at home or find somewhere else to go as I don’t like to spend my money at place where I don’t feel appreciated. To summarise quality of the coffee...

Utterly disappointed.

My friend and I love working in Coffee Base with our laptops, because it has such a great vibe -- and of course, we always order coffee and food periodically throughout the time we're there... but after today, I don''t think we'll be spending our money here ever again.

We had arrived at 10:45am, and ordered a coffee and some food, and were having a delightful chat. We then decided after eating, to get our laptops out and start working. At around 12am, one of the staff said that they had an afternoon tea booked at the table we were at for 12:30am, and we said that it was no problem.

An empty table opened up around five minutes later, so we decided to shuffle our things on to it, so that the other table was free, and we could continue working.

At around 1pm, the same lady comes over and asks us if we could leave, because although we ordered coffee and food when we first arrived, we hadn't ordered anything else in a while, and they had to apparently refuse two other people who wanted to buy food and drink.

(Had we been allowed to stay, we would have continued to order more food and drink whilst we were working, but it was just that neither of us were particularly hungry or thirsty in the hour that we hadn't ordered anything!)

As we left, we also looked over at the table we had originally been at, and there was no sign of an afternoon tea in sight (and there hadn't been since we moved tables!)

I find it disgraceful that the lady seemingly lied to us, in the hopes that we would leave.

It feels like they care more about making money than their customers!

My friend and I will be finding another coffee shop to work in from now on, where they're happy to let us stay for as long as we need, because we don't want to spend our money on a place that is in a hurry to...

This is a really nice little place but they couldn’t handle the breakfast rush at all. Drinks took half an hour to arrive - two coffees - and two cooked breakfasts well over an hour. They were cold too by the time they were put on the table. Customers were waiting so long multiple people requested refunds for their coffees and food because it was getting ridiculous - there weren’t even that many customers there, there were plenty of tables available, it was just really unorganised. Food prices weee absolutely not value for money. To top it off there were no baby changing facilities, I had to change my child on a regular bathroom surface underneath a hand dryer out of desperation…and the loft was open with a ladder down in front of the bathroom door?! So I couldn’t even get in and out of the bathroom properly with a baby as there was only a gap of a few inches. Members of staff could see me struggling to get out, trying to hold my baby in front of me first and then squeeze through after whilst dragging through the baby bag…not a single one offered to help by popping the ladder up for a moment or even taking my bag from me as I struggled through...