Jump to content

Recommended Posts

I?ve just returned from the newly ?refurbished? Dulwich Picture Gallery cafe. It?s my sometime Wednesday morning haunt with my 18 month old son. Asked for our usual, 1 flat white, a pain au chocolat and a babycino. 7 quid. Queried with staff and this was correct apparently. 3 quid for the flat white, 3 quid for the pastry and a quid for a shot of lukewarm milk in an espresso mug. Even my 18 month old was taken aback. Daddy we paid only ?6.50 for the same only 3 weeks ago he said (spoken in gibberish but I knew what he meant). It got me thinking... have we finally hit the ?1 babycino? I remember this feeling about the ?5 pint that I now accept as the norm. What next? The 8 quid glass of Merlot? The 5 quid sourdough loaf? These days may already be upon us.


I?ve decided not to accept that price in future and luckily i still have the following options for the same order.

Gail?s ?5.60

Rocca ?4.40


A shame really as I?ve always liked the ambiance of the Picture Gallery Cafe - and may I also add the coffee was acceptable and staff perfectly friendly. A quick google of the operating company ?Gather and Gather? shows that they are based on Floor 12 of the Shard. High overheads I guess. And I believe the name refers to what they do with piles of cash at the end of each day.


Anyway just thought I?d post this as a warning to any avid babycino fans out there.... some of you may be happy with the quid babycino. Unfortunately it?s just a little too much for this dad.

Link to comment
https://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/topic/217971-babycino-inflation/
Share on other sites

Ed_pete... now you mention it am I a little surprised I paid that much to be honest with you. I guess my routine with a toddler of parks and cafes has normalised the ridiculous prices around here. It?s just taken for the prices to get to 7 quid for me to say ?no more?.


Why would one buy a Babycino? I?m all for anything that will keep a child occupied while I enjoy a coffee.... which when you put it like that it may be well worth the 1 pound!

RobWD Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

>I?m all for anything that will keep a child occupied while I enjoy a

> coffee....


Rob, you could of course just choose to get yourself one of those now ubiquitous ?5 pints, therefore keeping yourself occupied instead of the child....

TheCat Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> RobWD Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> >I?m all for anything that will keep a child

> occupied while I enjoy a

> > coffee....

>

> Rob, you could of course just choose to get

> yourself one of those now ubiquitous ?5 pints,

> therefore keeping yourself occupied instead of the

> child....


?5 is normal now not special unless your in a spoons :)

EP212 Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I went to Horniman Cafe and daughter wanted a

> snack so got a ginger biscuit and a raspberry

> lemonade, paid ?5. ?2.50 each, seriously ?2.50 for

> a tiny biscuit? It's crazy!!



To be fair, entry to most of the Horniman is free, so like many museums and galleries they probably depend on making money from food, drinks and gifts.

I ordered my toddler son a 'babylager' the other day....got some funny looks...probably because he was smoking a 'babyfag' at the time too...and shouting to the whole pub how the influx of new babies in the last 6 months have ruined the area, and how its not like it was back in the good old days in 2016 when babies could leave their prams unlocked...

TheCat Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I ordered my toddler son a 'babylager' the other

> day....got some funny looks...probably because he

> was smoking a 'babyfag' at the time too...and

> shouting to the whole pub how the influx of new

> babies in the last 6 months have ruined the area,

> and how its not like it was back in the good old

> days in 2016 when babies could leave their prams

> unlocked...


Marvelous! Thanks. That was my thinking, too, the first time I heard "babyccino" in the cafe I manage. I had to figure out what to charge for these abominaccinos, and we have some good costing models, based on a decade of sales. So, here you go (assuming fully compostable stuff like we use)


Milk: 1.5p

Take away cup and lid: 10p

Straw: 1.5p

Barista's time: 30p - We base this on dividing the Barista's pay by the number of coffees made per year, and we make loads and loads, so for the gallery it's probably more like 40-45p


So, that's about 43p for your babyccino, without the markup that the cafe needs to make a profit. If they are charging you less than about ?1 then they are going out of business, and they have realised this, hence the price rise. Oh, and don't forget the 20% tax, paid on items sold, and income.


Then, there's the cleanup time it takes once the staff get access to the bombsite left behind (but that's a whole other thing. :-) )

Ours are a bit older than yours by the sounds of it RobWD, but a few years ago (2013/2014) there was no such thing as a decent babycino in all of ED - we had to explain what the beverage was. And half the time you'd still end up with a cup of scolding hot milk - not the cup full of froth we'd become used to Down Under. Sounds like at least the cafes have lifted their game on that front.


Still reeling from the ?5 pint a decade after the fact though.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Latest Discussions

    • Complaint submitted.  Your helpful link took me straight to the relevant page. 🙏
    • I spend a riddiculous amount of time at the PO.  Every day.  I watch and I watch closely.  Returns take seconds.  The wait might be long but the scan takes a second.  The only thing that slows down a return is people scrolling through their phones looking for QR codes. Business customers like me take seconds.  I might have up to 2 bags of boxes but every one is perfectly packaged and pre-paid.  It just needs a scan.  Seconds. For customers like me and for returns customers they could just put in a self-service check out and we would all be in and out in minutes.  Quicker than M&S.   Or, have a dedicated window for scanning and nothing else.  No facility to handle money at that window so nobody is tempted to ask for a service other than scanning.  That would get the queues down instantly. It is the people picking up things that backs up the queue.  The branch is not equipped to provide the service.  Next time you're in the branch take a look at the shelf space immediately behind the servers.  A few stacking shelves.  That's all the space they have.  Everything else is on the floor in a mess.  I take on board what someone said about the private delivery companies not delivering to Peckham and I didn't know that.   The biggest time wasting service of all is Parcelforce.  If someone in front of me asks for Parcelforce I want to cry.  Long, long, forms need to be filled out by hand, in triplicate.  It is Dickensian.   Please consider taking a few minutes to fill out an online complaint (link below).  I honestly believe that an influx of complaints might make a difference.  I don't want to demoralise the staff or anything sinister but the PO needs to see that the branch is broken. https://www.postoffice.co.uk/contact-us/in-branch-customer-experience    
    • Couldn't agree more with the frustration. I avoid it like the plague but made the mistake of picking up a parcel a couple of months ago and it took them 20 minutes to find it. This was after queuing for an hour. All the pickup parcels were just in a massive heap with no order or organisation so they manually had to search for everything. Bizarre and deeply annoying as if run well it could be a good asset to the Post Office and of course the community. Also, very much agree with the point re not taking it out on counter staff as it must be a terrible and demoralising environment to work in.
    • It's my understanding that it's private delivery companies such as Evri that have the post office as a delivery point so you can't redirect those parcels to Peckham SO as that's only for Royal Mail but, yes, probably worth trying a different drop off point. As you say a lot of the queue is for people dropping off and picking up parcels to and from Evri and other companies, kind of like a private sorting office, and while there is clearly a huge demand for this service, the post office was never designed for the number of parcels it is now required to deal with resulting in long queues and lost or hard to find parcels.  This messes up the efficient provision of other core PO services including cash/bank services now there are no banks in ED. I think this one office is being required to do too much for its size. 
Home
Events
Sign In

Sign In



Or sign in with one of these services

Search
×
    Search In
×
×
  • Create New...