Member-only story
I’m a proud Londoner: but even I’m finally done with Pret A Manger
What happened to the best cafe chain in the UK?
It is a running joke, here in London, that we all love Pret. There’s a Pret A Manger on almost every major street, and we will always try to go to a Pret for a quick bite before we give up and go to a Costa or Starbucks. Why? The products are fresher, the savoury menu has fresh salad and variation, and you can even get a decent soup. Sure, it was a bit pricier, but you felt far less unwell afterwards than you would drinking boiling water with essence of instant coffee or a highly processed wrap with almost cheese shoved in a toaster in Starbucks. Does anyone like any of the sandwiches and wraps in Starbucks or Costa, by the way? Why are they so bad? I digress. Pret used to be the most reliable place to grab lunch if you were a busy, middle class business/media/advertising/finance worker who had 15 minutes to inhale a hot chocolate and soup.
Again, used.
The nosedive in quality, the soaring prices, and the massive decline in service or standards has become so bad that many of us, even the hardcore daily consumers, have given up and decided never to return. Today, after holding out as long as I possibly could, I became one of them.
