*THIS REVIEW IS NOT FOR THE GARDEN CENTRE BUT THE CAFE LOCATED INSIDE*
3 of us went to this little cafe for lunch. Was pretty dead when we arrived at 2pm, plenty of tables, there were 3-4 other families about. Went and put up our order for 1 coffee, 1 iced tea, 1 water, soup, and a jacket potato. Staff seemed friendly and nice.
After 10 minutes, the place had gotten slightly busier. We got our drinks, however my water was missing. Not a big deal, i decided i didn't fancy it and said nothing.
Another 10 minutes went by and i asked one of the staff if our food was coming, she assured us yes. It was at this time a different member of staff came over with the receipt and asked about our order to confirm it was the right one. She then brought over the missing water.
After 20 minutes, the place had become a lot busier, they were understaffed and barely could keep up. I had noticed people who were sitting down after us were getting their food before us which i thought was odd. Perhaps they were making the soup from scratch and baking the potato for a while longer.
Now around the 30 minute mark we were getting a bit irritated with people LEAVING who had been sat and served before us. I had reminded them already so did not want to become overbearing.
Now by the 45th minute, we had decided we wanted to get a refund for the food and leave. THIS is where things turned sour. Once we got to the counter and asked for a refund, the member of staff started behaving like we had insulted her mother. Citing that they were very busy (which we agreed with) and that we had made a change of order (the missing water, i hadn't had the heart to explain to her it was part of the original order she missed), so she had to attend to us more than normal. Decency and common courtesy were becoming less prevalent at she continued defending her position (was this wastage coming out of her pay check?). Finally she called for the manager , which we were rather glad for so we could speak to a calm person. This "manager" had even less time for us! Again, she pointed out they were busy, which again we explained appreciated. It's worth noting while we were talking to the manager the previous employee was buzzing around and chirping in with her bits of the story, which i was surprised to find the manager allowed- We could barely have a conversation. She eventually explained that she would give us a refund BUT YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR YOUR DRINKS. This seemed unnecessary as we had no problem with the drinks, we were not expecting any discount. So we are finally settling the refund, while a hovering voice chirped up "they haven't payed for the bottle of water!". Now i was not sure if we had paid, and she forgot to bring the water, or she somehow missed the water in the original order, but she damned well wanted to make sure we paid that one pound! Ok, fair enough, i hung around to pay the money, but the manager instead decided to mutter under her breath "oh let them have it" in a matter of fact way, as if she was doing us a favour! I found this strange as i was standing there to pay but i got shooed off anyhow.
This is my first review and i was so shocked the the behaviour of the staff and how they handled that situation. You can learn a lot about a person by how they act under pressure, and well there was nothing favourable here. The only positive i have is the young lady with the red hair was the only one who stayed pleasant through out and was very helpful!
So i shan't be visiting this cafe again, and i recommend the garden centre either has some talks with whoever is running the cafe, because it was such and awful end to a wonderful day out. read more
