The Waitrose coffee revolt: Free drink offer 'attracts too many Chavs' Upmarket chain gives complimentary hot drinks to loyalty card holders Regular customers claim supermarket's offer attracts wrong clientele They say offer encourages cardholders with no intention of shopping Waitrose is facing a middle-class backlash after complaints that its stores are being invaded by less well-off shoppers. Regular customers claim the supermarket's offer of free cups of tea and coffee in all its stores is attracting the wrong type of clientele. For months, the upmarket chain has been giving complimentary hot drinks to loyalty card holders - even if they do not make a purchase. However, long-standing customers say the move encourages large numbers of myWaitrose cardholders who have no intention of shopping and merely get in the way. Customers claim the Waitrose offer of free cups of tea and coffee in all its stores is attracting the wrong type of clientele They also say giving out drinks is dangerous because some customers are carrying their cups of scalding hot coffee around the aisles as they shop. It follows earlier complaints that Waitrose is overly tolerant of less affluent 'chavs' and does not do enough to control the bad behaviour of their children. Among comments on social media about the harm being done to the store's image by the free drinks promotion was one from John Thompson, a business consultant from St Albans, Hertfordshire. He wrote on Twitter: 'Bit disconcerting seeing people carrying cups of hot coffee around Waitrose whilst they text and push trolleys with their bellies.' Penny Clayden, who does a weekly £100 shop at the supermarket, said that she is concerned that Waitrose has forgotten its customers 'who only want to do their food shopping and get home'. 'Please don't turn into a "soup kitchen" handing out free drinks,' she wrote on the store's Facebook page. The usual clientele of Waitrose are hardly strapped for cash. I think seeing people walking round the store holding on to takeaway cups of tea and coffee looks quite ridiculous and brings down the image of Waitrose until it is just like everywhere else - in which case I might as well shop anywhere else. The upmarket chain has been giving complimentary hot drinks to loyalty card holders Others have complained in the past that Waitrose staff turn a blind eye to children running amok in the aisles. One customer even used Twitter to suggest starting a petition to ban children from stores. Waitrose rejected complaints about its free coffee promotion. A spokesman said: 'The myWaitrose card is designed as a way of rewarding our established, loyal Waitrose customers as they shop. The vast majority of customers who enjoy a free tea or coffee are on a shopping trip to Waitrose at the time. Last week it was revealed that the popularity of the myWaitrose card offer has made the retailer the second largest provider of coffee in the UK, with its stores shifting one million cups a week. Waitrose boss Mark Price said he believed that shoppers want instant rewards, such as free coffee, rather than the 'meaningless' benefits offered by conventional supermarket loyalty cards. The scheme has helped Waitrose put on sales - while the likes of Tesco and Sainsbury's, which both run points-based loyalty cards, are losing market share. But it has been a disaster for independent coffee shops, who have complained about the damage Waitrose is doing to their trade. One owner, Garry Sutherland from Buckinghamshire, complained to the Office of Fair Trading last month saying his coffee sales had fallen by 40 per cent - about £200 a week - since the offer began. The OFT said it had investigated but would not be taking action. Waitrose has already attempted to widen its appeal by introducing its Waitrose Essentials budget line and by promising to match Tesco prices on branded goods. But last year it was ridiculed for its upmarket image when it ran a promotional campaign on Twitter asking people to finish the sentence 'I shop at Waitrose because...'. One said she favoured the store because she 'didn't like being surrounded by poor people'. Another replied, '...because I was once in the Holloway Road branch and heard a dad say "Put the papaya down, Orlando!."'