Kaspa's, Colchester

Colchester is -- for its size -- a really good town for food, with new cafes and restaurants opening all the time. Recently we got our second dedicated dessert lounge, part of the chain Kaspa's. It looks very glossy from the outside, and they have a huge menu of options. It's been open a few weeks, and we've considered going in a few times already, so today we decided to give it a shop.

We were shown to a seat, then ordered, then waited 20 minutes for them to deliver one part of the order (a waffle, which arrived warm not hot). It took two complaints -- once at the order counter and one to the manager -- and finally after 45 minutes we got my cookie dough and then the glass of water and finally the americano I'd ordered (or rather, about 4/5ths of it, since they'd spilled the rest down the outside of the cup).

My wife's waffle was okay. My cookie dough was reasonably good (though by this point I was so annoyed that I wasn't really enjoying it) but the accompanying gelato was not actually very nice. If I can't finish two scoops of gelato then that's a sad day for gelato. Worst of all, the coffee tasted burnt. I hate burnt coffee so much.

Meanwhile, staff were hauling bags of rubbish and cardboard boxes through the dining area, and clearly had not enough prep room behind their counter so were leaving mixing bowls and glasses on the raised counter edge.

The branch is very new -- so new that they don't even have their own tripadvisor page yet, and my scathing google review was the only one -- and they're still recruiting staff but, wow. The place was about half-full, and clearly that was too much for them to cope with. There's another dessert place in the high street that is our usual choice, and I suspect we'll just keep going to that one in future too.