The Coffee Diaries - Chapter 27
Costa Coffee, Brixton Road
So right off the bat I am going to say that this is going to be one of my more ranty reviews.
What's got me so riled up ? Two words - The toilets grrrrr.... I arrived at Costa Coffee dying to use their restroom. When I reached it, my joy instantly dispersed when I found them locked.
On the door of one of the toilets was a 'helpful' notice, telling me that the code to open them could be found on my receipt.
You can guess the rest! I was forced to go back to the counter, despite mentioning the urgency of my 'comfort break' and buy my coffee BEFORE I could use the restroom.
I watched several other customers - Mums with prams, friends meeting up for coffee, children and just other people like me, keen to use the restroom, all scrambling around looking for their receipts before they could use it.
The only impression I was left was that it was an unfriendly anti-engagement gesture from Costa to its numerous customers.
While I was in the restroom, which incidentally was no great shakes in terms of cleanliness, and I suspect in terms of staff cleaning rotas, is the primary reason for the receipt code nonsense; the barista had gone ahead and made my coffee, which sat on the bar waiting my collection.
But of course it didn't dawn on the serving barista to tell me it was mine! I was just ignored! Nice touch, great customer service - NOT!!
Oh and before I get down off my soap box there's the queuing system, which is confused by the fact that you can enter the store from both sides, which means during a rush, invariably you end up with a two headed snake queue.
I raised this very obvious and easily resolvable problem (clear signage and the occasional "The queue starts this way" from one of the baristas), with the young lady who served me.
Maybe she had just woken up with a dark gothic cloud over her, but this dark-haired harpy took stroppy to a whole new level.
She seemed to have completely forgotten the old adage that the customer is always right and answered me in super defensive mode, which quite frankly when I'm handing you over my hard-earned cash for a cheeky latte, is only going to do one thing - irritate me to the max !
Exactly like the front of the store did. This is beyond disappointing and a definite example of how not to design a shopfront.
Instead of the usual gleaming coffeehouse glass frontage, which welcomes you in, a massive Costa sign encases the shopfront in such a joyless unattractive wrapping, that I nearly walked past the place.
In the interests of fairness, I am now going to move onto some positives. The actual location and store site housed under an old railway arch) is great.
A cleverly exposed brickwork wall acts as backdrop to the main counter which is elegantly spot-lit at a mid-level that accentuates the food displays and made a rather large space, feel quite cosy.
The seating is smartly arranged at the front of house, with two rows of two seaters, then two long wall sofas, which are also set up with a small table and chair opposite them as two seaters. The store is mercifully devoid of that super loud 'tin' background music, which often leaves you straining to hear the words of whoever you are with.
Unfortunately it does lay you open if you are a solo visitor to being party to some extremely boring conversations. A woman sitting beside me systematically organised her entire finance and utilities issues on her phone, loudly disclosing enough information to make a nicking her identity a breeze !
My advice, if you're grabbing a caffeine fix el solo is to stick your earphones on and chill out !
The recessed enclave behind the main counter, houses a trench of seating, with a mixture of soft seating, a couple of baby high-chairs and a baguette where the Wifi connections are housed.
This area is cosy, well lit and if you are there for say an afternoon no one moves you on; or gives you that annoying have you finished yet scornful look you get at some other coffee houses.
Now for my ultimate judgement. How good was the latte? This, I am sorry to say was most definitely only average, with no enough of a kick of caffeine it for me. It was served to me in one of those enormous glass vessels (why do coffee places insist on using them - they are so blooming impractical and you're always worried they are going to fall over.
So would I visit this particular Costa again? On balance it's a begrudging maybe, if I was in the area, would make my order a fruit cooler and didn't get served by the stroppy harpy again. read more