From sitcom dreams to doubled losses - why Costa has lost its grip on coffee lovers |
Costa Coffee has seen its UK losses more than double as rising costs and weaker high-street trade hit performance, adding to pressures facing major retail and hospitality employers across Scotland. Here, The Herald food and drink writer Sarah Campbell visits one of the chain's Glasgow branches to investigate.
As part of the generation that wasted their pre-teen years watching endless reruns of Friends after school, I always assumed coffee shops would become an integral part of adult life.
For the stylish twenty-somethings in the definitive 90s sitcom, their beloved Central Perk was portrayed as a sacred third space, where any of life’s curveballs - measly or major -could be hashed out on mismatched boho furniture, with chunky cappuccino mugs clutched in hand.
Later, after moving from the Western Isles to Glasgow, stopping by coffee chains on the way to college felt like unlocking a new era of post-adolescence, and a tenuous connection to all the slick city-dwelling TV characters I had idolised.
A latte from Costa was the go-to, served in a domed, plastic-lidded cup bigger than my head and packed with so much ice that it rattled with every step along Buchanan Street.
The fact that I was mindlessly sipping my way through a small bucket of ‘skinny’ milk laced with at least a double espresso before 10am, having paid close to five pounds for the pleasure, was no matter.
Something about carrying a branded single-use cup from one of the big chains was immensely satisfying, and back then, I genuinely believed that was what good coffee was supposed to taste like.
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