Pret A Manger

Trash. The food was okay although I hate these places because if you walk in with a fiver, you’ll walk out with 5 lettuce leaves, 6 pumpkin seeds, a spoonful of hummus and 50p change. This Pret is clean and looks cute but there wasn’t enough seating, and as always in these hipsterneckass places, a booth for 4 is taken up by one loser and his laptop. I ordered a fennel and mint tea (don’t judge me) and the woman on the till stares at me blankly as if I had spoken an alien language. I repeated myself. Same response. A minute passed with her staring into my big blue eyes before she spun around and saw what I had ordered was written in clear English on the menu board behind her. After I finished my mouthful of superfood salad or whatevertheheck it’s called I ordered a hot chocolate, which was actually really nice although there was like a 1KG mound of chocolatey cement or something at the bottom of the cup which made me sad because it would have made the drink richer had it been prepared correctly. I give 2 stars because I’m not heartless and I kind of knew what I was getting myself into, but yeah don’t bother, I could have had the same thing at home and still been unimpressed but I would probs be about £4,000 better off.

A great coffee shop in the heart of liverpool. Can get busy with local businesses — staff always polite and provide quick service!
Good selection of hot drinks and fresh pastries on offer! Always seems very clean and tables are cleared away promptly.
Nice outdoor seating area where you can enjoy your coffee and watch the city go by!

The latte I’m drinking right now is rather stronger than I’d like (but then again I’m a coffee lightweight as you know) but the staff are friendly, whenever I’ve eaten in here before the food has always been great and it is a brilliant spot for a rest during a Liverpool One shopping jaunt and great for people watching! Plus the upstairs is pretty cosy if you want to stay longer than for a quick coffee.
Extremely handy and reliable.

Love this place. Great drinks, nice atmosphere and staff are the best. Relaxing place to grab a drink and something to eat.

You ready to eat? I’m always ready to eat. Pret a manger fell out of favour with me when Mcdonald’s got involved. You see I detest MaccyD’s. You may be thinking this is because of the corporate greed argument. Nie nie nie (No, no, no in Polish) It’s because every single time I have had anything to eat from here, WITHOUT FAIL, I have received the most God awful stomach cramps imaginable. Also I managed to watch super size me a few years back. Now not that I was influenced by the movie but it did make a very strong argument against the way the food is prepared by the fast food giant. I decided to be safe rather than sorry and rule myself out of any further Mcdonald’s meals for the forseeable future.
Now it might seem a bit excessive to rule out an outlet at the mere sign of any association with MCD’s. However I do feel a slightly plastic feel to the way Pret do their business. I mus prefer family run sandwich shops, and you shall find plenty of them dotted around. Sure they claim to be organic but the term is being thrown about so often it has lost its meaning a little bit. I mean how often for example do you have anyone challenging the retailer of teh authenticity of this claim unless something grossly goes wrong. Add to all this the place is normally too busy at lunch times anyways. It has become a magnet for professionals, mainly because the positioning of the stores is very tactical and the quick fix lunch strategy goes down well with people who only have 30 minutes to spare for lunch.
Listenb folks you only live once, enjoying our food is one of the pleasures of life that should not be compromised at any rate. Enjoy your lunch take your time. If your job doesn’t allow for this, find another. The world is your oyster open your horizons. I don’t want food that is ready to eat I want food that tastes amazing and brings me to life. I want my taste buds to catch fire in ecstacy everytime I have something to eat, because who knows it may be my last!!! While Pret a Manger will always have a market with the quick fixers too busy to realize the reality of this truth, I am no longer in this camp, and believe me I used to be. A profound moment or two released me and as Furtado did I too am like a bird, and I did fly away!!!

Pret a Manger claims to be an organic food company that does not make the same type of chemically processed food that many other establishments continue to roll out. I have to say that this type of company ethos is refreshing to see and is clever marketing as it means that Pret a Manger can offer a niche to the people of Liverpool especially the health conscious amongst them. As a student eating badly and drinking heavily is a regularly indulged vice so a place such as this is a nice change and as well as this the food is pretty good.
The service here is always fast and the staff don’t mess about with what they do and that shows good professionalism and dedication.
On the whole a great establishment which knows its crowd and plays to it well.

There’s not much to say about this Pret that can’t be said about most Prets. In a nutshell it’s ‘posher than average’ sandwiches at ‘higher than average’ prices. Not flat out expensive, just a tad more than you’d pay at a local butty bar. But that being said, you can’t always get a crayfish and rocket sarnie with a miso soup to go at ‘Bab’s Baps’ so you do tend to get what you pay for — and what you get with Pret is consistency.
This particular Pret has seating upstairs, downstairs and a little area outside, so despite looking quite wee from the front you can almost always get a seat.
There are a couple of loos upstairs, and these really are the only thing that annoys me about this place. They aren’t easily signposted (for reference, they’re upstairs, at the back, right hand corner) and there are only 2 of them. One for men and one for women. Now I’ve not been in the men’s loo, so I may be mistaken and it may be a TARDIS-​like space with a dozen urinals in it, but I suspect it resembles the women’s loo, with a toilet, sink, loo roll and bin. And given that the ‘waiting’ space for these toilets is shared, I really don’t see why the toilets can’t be used by both men and women (although not at the same time, that would be against food hygene regulations, I’m sure). More than one I’ve seen people of one gender in a queue waiting for the loo when there’s been an empty cubicle available.
So, that minor quibble aside, Pret is as Pret does, and it does it pretty well.

At lunch times I imagine this Pret is rammed to the rafters with local office and retail workers grabbing a quick bite. Early to late afternoon however, it’s a great place to unwind or recharge your batteries. There’s a handful of tables outside on warm days and a cluster of comfy arm-​chairs and metal tables and chairs inside on the ground and first floors.
We all know, I’m not a fan of Pret’s coffee. Their hot chocolate, miso soup and Yoga Detox Bunny cordial all get the thumbs up though. Ditto their individual carrot and lemon cakes and their current seasonal special, goats cheese, asparagus and basil artisan baguette. It’s only on the menu til the end of May apparently, so if you like the sound of it you’d better get your skates on!

Pret A Manger as you might tell by the name, is a French eatery. There are two branches in Liverpool, with the smaller of the two being in Paradise Street.
As eager as I was to purchase something to eat from there, I realised I was too early; on this occasion, their hot baguettes that sounded delicious were not ready at 10.30am. I was slightly disappointed by this as I wanted something quick to eat and it seemed a soothing place to eat it with friendly staff too. Next time the hot baguettes are available, I ought to buy their jalapeño chicken (I could smell it cooking in the background) but I had no time to waste on this visit, so I left with a chilled bottle of elderflower cordial for £1.30. As fancy as it sounds and with my doubts having not tried elderflower before, it actually tasted refreshing and mild. I would recommend it for the money you pay and definitely give this place another chance because I like its style and French snacks it sells, particularly the pastries! 3 stars for now. I would like to give it 4 stars after my next visit.