Costa Coffee — Restaurant in Rochford

Unless you read reviews you won't know about parking restrictions! A coffee shop is a place to socialise & chat or sit & chill or even do some quite work over a coffee, away from outside pressures.. but not here.. u need to clock watch it seems & not enjoy your time at leisure because you only get 90mins. This isn't made clear AT ALL!! There is a small car park sign which could easily be hidden by a van. Staff have a tablet behind the counter which apparently you are meant to enter your car reg but no instructions given or advised by staff on any of my 3 visits here. Only became aware because my friend got a £100 parking fine letter when we met here for coffee. If you try to dispute it & ask for some support from Costa to show you were a paying customer, they have a bad attitude & aren't interested. DEFINITELY go elsewhere so you can relax! I won't be returning that's for sure! Other establishments have much clearer signage & it is a legal requirement to have clear concise instructions.. doesnt cost anything to inform customers to enter their reg, happy to take your order & money but not to inform you of this!!! Maybe if we weren't kept waiting for so long in taking our order, we could have left quicker! There wasn't even a queue & still had to wait 10mins before...

Unfortunately it’s a bad review, been here twice now, first time we used the drive through, a young girl took our order, I asked for a oat milk cappuccino and she asked if I wanted chocolate, obviously I said yes please, we collected our order and drove a good few miles to a green area and I opened up the lid on my cappuccino and no milk froth and no chocolate so basically a normal slightly milked not that great coffee, I couldn’t be bothered to go back so just drank as is, Today we gave them another chance and drove the miles to get there, drive through was closed so we parked up and went in to order, plenty of staff but mostly lots of young hormonal kids learning the ropes, polite guy asked to take our order and had to apologise for not having any oat milk so second visit and second disappointment, obviously it’s too difficult for them when they run out of something just to pop to Tesco down the road to top up on milk although I doubt anyone there was old enough to drive, We ended up going to the Hockley high street costa instead, Avoid this useless costa until they learn to organise themselves properly but I’m not sure that’s going to happen...

I used to actually like Costa & have visited this one on quite a few occasions. Today though I received a £60 parking fine through the post for parking there more than 90minutes! What an absolute joke of a place, another example of why this country is going down the toilet.

Upon reviewing Google street view it appears there are a few tiny signs dotted around the carpark displaying the 90min max duration. Thats fair enough, but let’s be honest, who even expects to see a parking sign in a coffee shop carpark at Costa’s. Customers go there for coffee & pay for it (quite high prices mostly), they shouldn’t have to keep clock watching, which when you think about it is bad for Costa’s business as it actually encourages the customer to leave more quickly rather than stay there longer & pay to drink or eat more!

According to other reviews on here there seems to be a small tablet at the till to input your car reg to negate being fined after 90mins. Any time I’ve been in there I’ve never noticed it, no has any staff member informed me of it. I wont be visiting any Costa’s ever again after this, poor decision to try & fine customers...