Costa

R.I.P. the Paris weekend break?!
Let me explain. It’s easy to get under the skin of what makes the french capital work. You sit au soleil on a terrace, drinking coffee, eating over priced pastries, watching the world and trying to earwig conversations in a strange language. Forget all that vieux chapeau travelling hassle, you can do all of the above at Costa Coffee in the village of Formby. Granted, the strange language bit works better if you are visiting from Birmingham and are less familiar with the lost dental fricatives and increased glottal stopping hallmarking the speech round these parts.
Costa converted that site of failed wine bars mentioned elsewhere and inherited a pavement that faces south… voila…job done! The narrow room works ‘cos unlike a wine bar, you only order once and then you escape to be left in peace.
Result!
P. S. The difference between R.I.P and rip is about 100pence per banana nut muffin. I could explain a way round this problem but only when I am sharing that lovely sunny terrace with you one day…(fade to dreamy finish)
Tip of the Day. If you bite down too hard on the fruity flapjack you could lose more than your dental fricatives.

I’m not a huge fan of Costa — the obnoxious red signage, the weak mud-​brown coffee and the fact that I once needed to have a lie down after having a ham and cheese toastie from here. The branches always seem to be a bit dirty too — I’m not saying all of them, I’m sure there are Costas where I would happily sup a frappaccino out of the toilet bowl, but I’m just saying in my experience they don’t tend to be very well looked after.
This branch was a bit of a surprise then, taking the cursed site of a number of failed wine bars I expected that the place would suffer from the same problems that plagued those premises — namely how to furnish the strange space inside the shop front. Now that it’s here though it occurs that this exactly the sort of business that should have been here all along, a coffee shop completely suits the plate glass windows and surprisingly small interior space of the building. It always seems to be popular too — I did think it would be one coffee shop in Formby too far but apparently not. The coffee is still not up to scratch.