Unsubscribed.

After four years, the inevitable happened: Pret withdrew its generous coffee subscription, effective today, and replaced it with a much less affordable version. I went through the seven stages of grief in one morning during my H.R. manager’s one-to-one meeting, when I glanced at my phone and saw the news had broken.

A few weeks later, my H.R. manager resigned. I hope it wasn’t connected to me losing my shit over a coffee subscription during what was supposed to be quality time with her manager. When I announced her leaving to the wider team on weekly callover, I said that Pret and her shared many wonderful attributes: value for money, funny, fantastic, and will be greatly and irreplaceably missed.

The subscription was ‘fantastic’ and ‘great value’ (and probably won’t come back) because it was dirt cheap. Pret was losing a ton of money on it, no question. For £twenty, then £twenty-five, and finally £thirty a month, you could enjoy five free coffees a day, including fancy ones and extra shots, anything. Five a day was too many; I tried to max it out on more than one occasion but always failed. The European shared my Q.R. code; all we needed to do was ensure we didn’t visit within thirty minutes of each other. She enjoyed her Pret runs for their matcha latte; I enjoyed mine for a strong cappuccino or a double shot flat white; essentially Pret’s version of a cortado. I am sure my illicit code-sharing agreement was not unique to us, and perhaps another reason why I’m talking about the subscription in the past tense. Again, I think I’m making too much out of this.

It was ‘funny’ because Pret attracts characters. There was the goth who held up one of the Victoria branches for twenty minutes arguing about a cold coffee until a builder dragged her out of the queue by her rucksack. A Dutch man was endlessly complaining about the taste of their coffee in my regular branch at Shell Centre until I, a meek and mild soul, told him to have some “fucking consideration” for the rapidly growing queue behind him and informed him that if he wants perfect Arabica or whatever, he’s in the wrong place (and, let’s be honest, the wrong country). Even the trips to get coffee, if nothing baroque happened, were fun, as they offered ten-minute sojourns in the sun, for a breather from work, to shoot the shit with a colleague, or to catch up on the memes The European sends me on Instagram.

Indeed, most of the complaints I overheard at Pret were levelled at the coffee. I mean, it’s not shit, but it’s not great either. You get what you pay for, even without the subscription discount. It’s decently made on the whole and does what it needs to do. Again, I’m taking this too seriously; Pret coffee doesn’t need a review, nor does their food (but their discounted porridge after a cold ride in the winter is wonderful).

Yes, coffee trips, shooting the shit, and meeting fraggles can happen in a post-Pret world, but it won’t be the same. It was a rare glimmer of generosity in an ever-stingier world. Right now, I’m getting free instant coffee from the canteen at work until the day we move house, and I can move our old Nespresso machine into my office. Even though Leon runs a similar deal to Pret’s O.G. offering, seven hundred-ish words, comparing the subscription to a competent senior leader and a general rant suggests that I might be taking its demise a little too seriously. Pret’s leadership certainly are not, so screw ’em, I’m not taking advantage of the £5 a month 50% off 5 coffees a week monstrosity.

I could go and join Leon but they’re less convenient than Pret, and I have had too many experiences in them to be loyal. So, I will stifle my tears and save £thirty a month. But hey, as they say, don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.