Muffin Break Cafes

Coffee on the hoof & was ok

The blurb for Muffin Break café from the Metro Centre website reads: «Choose from over 200 sweet and savoury muffin recipes prepared and baked fresh in store daily to fill the cabinets, so that no two days are the same»
I can only assume that the day I visited they were having a bit of an off-​day as the muffin choice was considerably narrowed to a choice of 12, all sweet with one savoury ham & cheese, and a further choice of 5 cakes and 5 cake bars.
We opted for a blueberry muffin and a date bar slice along with 2 lattes. The lattes arrived in 2 glasses; nothing unusual in that you may say as Costa serve their lattes in glasses. But these were drinking glasses — I know that as I have the same glasses at home, bought from Sainsbury’s @£1 each.
These glasses have NO handles, ergo you couldn’t actually lift the glass (now full of hot coffee) to drink out of without burning your fingers. We were therefore reduced to spoonfeeding ourselves til the coffee went down to a level where you could actually HOLD the glass. This is dumb: either use cups for your lattes or provide glasses with handles or holders, otherwise you risk a case for burnt fingers at some point. And the blame for that claim will most definitely be yours.
Onwards to the eateries. The date bar tasted nice, but was rock hard and I struggled to cut it with the knife they provided on the plate alongside it, thereby suggesting they were well aware of it’s breeze block consistancy. Hubby opted to have the muffin heated (ie shoved in the microwave for 10 seconds) but it was a tasteless affair and utterly disappointing given that this is what they specialise in!
The seating was comfortable but it all seemed charmless… the flat brown paint and lighting don’t help any… it all seemed a bit unloved. Shame really as the concept for a quick muffin and a cuppa seems ideal; but only of course if your muffins are tasty and you can actually hold the cups!