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For my first post on this blog, I wanted to start with a coffee shop I’d never been before. Although I am a regular in the other Caffè Nero locations in Lincoln (Did you know there is THREE of them in Lincoln City Centre??)

Location:

I actually didn’t know there was a Caffè Nero in Waterstones until a few weeks ago and I thought this was the perfect opportunity to go. This Caffè Nero is located on the top floor of the Waterstones book store on the Corn Exchange in Lincoln City Centre.

Ambience and Decor

As i have already mentioned above, this cafe is in a Waterstones book store and this is very obvious when you are in there. This is because half of the cafe seating is in the store. I think this is to encourage people to stay longer and read in there. Although I find this very strange as it makes it feel like people are randomly sat in the middle of a book store.

In terms of the seating is the same as any other Nero in the fact that everything is dark brown and muted. This is the look they go for however I believe it could do with an upgrade and coming into the 21st century especially with the fact that there is only one plug socket in the whole of the cafe (I’ll go more into this in a later section).

I also find this cafe very strange in the fact that the majority of the seating is for two people together, so if there is three, four or more or you in a group wanting to get coffee there isn’t much space to do so, unless you want to sit in the middle of Waterstones as has been mentioned earlier.

In terms of the ambience of the place, the music is at a medium to soft level consisting of a selection of folk and jazz music, which can be heard over the chatter of conversation but not loud enough to distract customers reading or working.

I visited this cafe between 12.30-2 on a Tuesday lunch time and at points the cafe got quite full but it maintained about half full for most of the duration of my stay. As I was leaving at about 2:15, there was only a few customer left in the cafe after the business lunch time rush.

Customer Service

The customer service in this cafe was efficient. I went with my boyfriend as he had a voucher for a free coffee (as part of the o2 priorities on a Tuesday or Wednesday) and we were served straight away. The staff were friendly and quick to serving us, there was one or two people in front of us but we expected this going in at lunch time. However, it was quieter than other Caffè Nero locations in Lincoln at this time of day.

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I had a cup of tea and my boyfriend had a large latte and they were quick and efficient at preparing our drinks while I found a seat for us to sit at together. I have uploaded a picture of the presentation above.

Selection

This café has a selection of hot and cold beverages as well as toasties, salads, sandwiches and porridge. The menu was very simplistic and the same as every other chain cafe. This meant that there isn’t much to comment on when it comes to the selection of choice

Other things to mention

I did not know what to call this section but I knew I needed to mention it as it is something that is really important to myself, and probably other people around my age, when sitting in a cafe to do work. There was one ONE plug socket in the entire cafe!! This came as a massive surprise to me as when visiting other caffè Nero locations there is plenty of room to do work with multiple plug sockets. However this one had the single plug socket, I also find this strange as there was multiple posters around promoting that they have free wi-fi.

Overall thoughts

Overall, it was an enjoyable experience with quick service and friendly staff. In addition to this, the beverages we had were to a top quality. I would be likely to recommend this to someone who wanted a quiet coffee whilst reading a book or a newspaper. However if you want to come to do some work on your laptop, I would recommend to go somewhere else as this isn’t laptop charger friendly.

Overall, I would rate this a 5 out of 10