This is my first 1* rating on yelp. I have never given a 1* rating before because I always force…read moremyself to find at least ONE thing good about a place. Brysons is so bad I was not able to find anything good about it. I would rate it a zero if I could, but I can't.
We went here on a sunny afternoon in need of food, reprieve from the heat, and a bathroom break. There were so many other tea shops around town we could have gone into, but this was the first place we saw and they were offering 2 pots of tea and 2 cream scones for 5 quid (not a bad deal, plus we were desperate for the loo). It turned out the special was only being offered in the bakery downstairs, where there was nowhere to sit, so we opted to head for their tea room upstairs, where everything was double the price.
The tea room ambience was awful. It did not look like a proper tea room at all, and looked more like a candidate for a restaurant makeover. The carpet was worn and had a horrible green and red floral pattern. The tables and chairs were these 90's oak set that just looked naff. When we walked in, there were 3 servers milling around by the till but not one of them acknowledged our presence - this, despite the fact that there were only 2 other customers in a rather empty-looking tea room. I actually had to ask one of them if we should just seat ourselves or wait to be seated. We seated ourselves.
Bad ambience, check. Uninterested staff, check. We should have walked away at this point, but didn't (our judgment was obviously clouded by our low blood sugar and bladders screaming to be emptied). We thought things could not get any worse, but we were wrong.
1. We were served by a man who just could not care less about his job, never mind his customers. He was SIGHING as he was taking our order. We asked for just 1 pot of Darjeeling tea to share as I was not going to have much tea. He flatly told us we had to order a pot of tea for 2. Fine. No sense in debating this.
2. When we asked for a Victoria Sponge cake, the sighing man said they had run out. WTF? This is a tea room staple, for crying out loud! There's a bakery downstairs - surely they can find some sponge cake, cream, and jam and slap it all together? Apparently not. All credit to him, he did point me to this almost empty display case that had 3 slices of pathetic looking cakes - lemon, carrot, and vanilla cream - none of which looked even remotely appetizing as they looked stale, cheaply made, and were covered in cling film. Ummmm...thanks, but me thinks not.
3. Since there were no cakes, we ordered an egg salad sarnie because we thought this was something they could not screw up. At over 5 quid, surely, it HAS to be decent. It just HAS to be, we told ourselves. Ah, how wrong we were (more on that later).
4. Our order was was served to us - scratch that - dropped off at our table by the most surly and sour-faced woman I have ever encountered (she may as well just have drop-kicked it) . She only gave us one place setting, so when we asked for a second place setting, she barked "you only ordered one sandwich!", and walked away in a huff. Lovely.
5. Now on to the 5 quid sandwich. It was the worst egg salad sandwich I've ever had. The thin white bread was stale and was probably bought at ASDA on sale at 2 loaves for 50p. It was of such low quality, I do not know how a restaurant could even use it. The egg salad filling was so thin, we could hardly taste it. Oh, and the side of coleslaw it came with tasted like an ASDA special as well, and was WARM, like it had been sitting at room temperature for about 1/2 an hour.
6. The tea - for which they have the nerve to charge 4 quid - consisted of one medium-sized pot with 2 Twinings Darjeeling tea bags (yes,they could not even be bothered to use proper tea leaves).
7. The clincher? When we were ready to pay for the bad food and service, NOT ONE member of staff was around to take our money. We waited by the till for over 5 minutes, and still, no one came, so we left our money on the counter. Since the smallest note we had was a 10 Pound note, we ended up leaving a tip. We should have just walked away without paying, but we believe in karma, so we did the decent thing.
Bryson's is a total let-down for a place that calls itself a "Tea Room and Craft Baker".
So, to anyone reading this, please heed my warning and give Brysons a miss. When you see it, just walk on by and pretend you did not see it. Do not be fooled by it. Do not be tempted by it. Just keep walking and do not even give it a second glance.
