Coco's Soul Food — Restaurant in Preston

Horrendous!!! There's a lot to unpack here. Firstly, we had prebooked and were told our tables would be ready. They were not. We were sent upstairs and asked the staff member which ones were our tables and he just looked at us blankly. We just guessed and sat anywhere (bless the 2 girls who actually offered to move so that we could sit together, they were actually more helpful than the staff). We told the staff when we prebooked that we would need three high chairs. On the day we asked for said high chairs and were told "sorry, we only have one". Me and my sister had to eat with our babies on our laps. Midway through our meal and with certain dishes still being brought up to us we were told we had to carry everything up another floor and move there instead. So we then had to take all of our belongings and food up another level part way through eating. At least there was another baby seat on the third floor so we got seats for 2 babies instead of 3. Whilst our food was still being brought up to us I asked a staff member to get us drinks. She very rudely refused. She said we had to go all the way downstairs for that. I informed her that staff members were still bringing our dishes up to us so could they not bring the drinks up with that? Her answer was just a point blank, NO! I asked another staff member to at least take our drinks order down to the main counter and one of us will come down and pick up the drinks when they're ready. She gave me a pen and paper to write the drinks order down on and then never came back. My sister ended up having to go down and order the drinks and carry all of the drinks up on her own. When we had finished my brother-in-law went to pay. We told him to just pay for everyone and we'd transfer the money to him and therefore, to ask for a receipt. When he got the receipt the items were not listed but it just said "takeaway" for each item and different amounts on each line. He asked for an itemised receipt so that we could check that we were being charged correctly and could later split the bill. The staff just said no, that it wasn't possible. That a copy of the menu was available online so amounts had to be correlated and worked out from that. Even after all of this there was no money taken off the bill or not even an apology. My message to Coco's would be, if you can't handle a big party (15 people) then don't accept the booking. Don't say this is something you can cater for and then treat the customers, who are spending quite a large amount, like this. My message to everyone else is, I'd never go back but if you do go then know that the food is quite rich. You can't finish a full dish as it very quickly becomes too much. As for the customer service, it's inexistent. Be prepared to be treated terribly. Everything I've listed can be backed up by their CCTV (if...

Good food, fast service. Highly recommended, albiet salty, umami overload.

When we had our first bite at Coco's, we wondered, why haven't we been here before? Classic, Better late than never moment.

Coco's is the most recommended restaurant in Preston by the young brigade. Close to UCLAN, great food, vibrant ambience, affordable and food from around the world. Ticks all the right boxes.

Open on all days except Sunday, we visited on a Tuesday late afternoon for lunch. There was some delay in placing our order as they very politely explained that they are short staffed at this hour of the day,which was understandable. Few sips into our drinks and the food arrived, rather very quickly and blew our minds.

The chimichangas were our favourite. Crusty, flaky, cheesy and bursting with flavours. Let's put it this way, take your tastiest pizza/burrito, fold it upon itself and deep fry it. Yumm! Although it was starter, we started and ended our meal with it.

For the main course, we had the goat curry and jerk chicken. Both were mouth watering and very flavourful. If one likes BBQ sauce and crispy, flavourful fries, the jerk chicken should satisfy you. And if you are from the tropics and can handle the overload of spice and umami in your meat curry, go for the Goat curry. It reminded us of home although we come from different parts of India. We especially liked the rice which was served with the curry, it could stand out on its own as well.

The drinks, which were imported bottled beverages, were different and refreshing. We chose a hibiscus-lemonade drink from Calypso and a root beer from Australia.

We were told that they will be changing their menu soon, so the brown stew was not available. I would say 4.5 stars out of 5 for the entire experience. Half a star only cause mid way during the meal we felt that the salt content of the mains was extremely high which I am assuming were the dishes that we had ordered. The next time we would go for less salty options and maybe an extra bowl of greens/salad.

Needless to say, we will be visiting this place over...

Preston has impressed be a lot as places may not look so inviting from the outside but actually are nice and cosy and serve fantastic food.

Places have their twist and blend of sauce and presentation so they are great at what they do.

Cocoa was recommended to me it turned out mind blowing. First time I’ve not felt annoyed that I had to pay for the separate sauce. I got their spicy sauce and that’s the first spicy sauce that didn’t burn my mouth but had a hell of a kick to it with some sweet notes.

The presentation of the food was excellent and the food arrived quickly too. As I ate the food tasted better and it was cooked to a very good standard.

They have seating on the upper level too so plenty of seats. Food costs around £16 so it was actually cheap compared to Manchester the same meals at this standard would costs around £20+

I got the cheesy fry’s and they were proper cheesy fries and not a rip off version where cheese is just dropped on top of the fries.

Definitely going back and a must try...