Starbucks Review No.11 : Membury Service Station

I've just spent a rather relaxing week in Devon with the family. I love Devon. I go every year, a week of relaxation, fresh air, time to escape London.

However...Every morning I woke up with a headache. It wasn't the loud farming machinery, oh no, it wasn't the loud cows, oh no again. I think it was coffee withdrawal symptoms. I have a Grande Vanilla Latte every morning at work, sometimes I even go Venti (naughty I know). This past week I went cold turkey...nothing, I tried to pour a few cups of tea down my neck but my head was having none of it. The nearest Starbucks was 14 miles away - now I like to walk, but 14 miles that's really long.

I tweeted the UK Mangaging Director of Starbucks who confirmed my fears...the nearest branches were no where near...trapped.

I soldiered on through, when I get back to Chelmsford there is a Starbucks there, in fact there are two. I still had a 5 hour car journey between me and the promised land...We pulled up in a rather run down service station en-route, proudly advertising it's KFC up-stairs, then I saw it...

*queue operatic up-lifting music.

Membury Services on the M4 had a Starbucks.

Starbucks Review No.11 : Membury Service Station.

A real case of supply and demand, I was already scoring this branch highly before I'd stepped in. As soon as I did, step in, it wen't down hill...massive queue and crap staff.

The atmosphere was fine, I like a good Service Station anyway; a limbo between A and B. Lots of different people, all running about, stocking up on trashy magazines, travel sweets and using the bogs.

Atmosphere was fine, cleanliness was also above board, the cleaner was a little lady (I think it was a lady) who smelt a little bit like rusks..anyway she was employed by the service station. All the Starbucks staff had to do was serve the coffee and the food.

I went on a rant, not at them (I don't like to cause a scene), the rant went something like this...

"I'm sorry I took so long to get my coffee sweet family of mine, thank you for waiting. The staff were clearly retarded. They were serving each other's food first in front of a massive queue of customers, they were having a chat behind the counter, one (the largest of the four) didn't know how to use the cleaning products and had the most annoying laugh and wasn't really doing very much, one girl was moaning about the till saying she'd given it a smack earlier as it wasn't working, she was also trying to keep up with all the drinks orders which took forever to come, the guy was flirting with one of the other members of the staff (the largest of the four I think) and they were all complaining that one of the team had been on break too long and should be back, I asked for a straw for a large straw and the girl barked back at me that the only ones they had were on the counter despite me seeing them behind her"...and breathe.

Coffee tasted good though.

Membury you should be ashamed of yourself...you score 2 mochas out of 10.