Downham Garden Store

Ordered Prawn cocktail and it came as a lettuce leaf not washed with chopped lettuce on top and tasteless prawns in a pink sauce. The roll had clearly been frozen as it was dry and had signs of freezer burn in it. My husband ordered belly pork and whilst slightly better was only warm not hot as expected. Service though was good. Would not return.

The restaurant offers excellent service and great food with a wide variety of options to choose from. The prices are fair and you definitely get what you pay for. The dishes are homemade, nicely presented, and delicious.

Considering this cafe has had a refit, which gives the impression of modern and a nice place to eat, it's not. Our experience of breakfast was poor. Firstly I don't get why smoked bacon is on the menu and no alternative not everyone likes it! The person seated behind us ordered a large breakfast, when it came out it looked more like a small portion, charged at £14.95 may I add!! Pleased we didn't order that! I order 2 hash browns, mushrooms, fried egg and beans. The hash browns were really heavily greasy and the mushrooms, was one small mushroom! The egg was undercooked and had white snot bits , so I didn't eat it or pay for it. This really is a average eating place, that doesn't warrant the prices it's charging!! Way overpriced for poor quality and quantity of food. Just won't bother coming back!

We walked into the cafe and saw a sign saying wait here to be seated , so we did. Eventually a waitress walked past carrying drinks for another customer on her way back she looked at us as if we were mad for standing by the sign, she asked what we wanted, I replied by saying that the sign says to wait her to be seated. She explained that the cafe was for eating and the lounge was for tea and cake. At this point we hadn 't seen a menu so I replied by saying I didn 't know if I wanted to eat or not! She handed me a drinks menu and told us to sit on a sofa and to let her know what we decided then she would try to find us a table (in a near empty cafe! After waiting for her to come back for over 10 minutes, I went to the bar to ask for assistance. The lady behind the bar made herself very busy avoiding and ignoring me. After waiting there for a further 5 minutes, my husband lost his patience so we just left. If this is the service we received before we were even seated, we didn 't hold much hope for the quality of service once seated. We decided to take our custom elsewhere and will not bother to return.

Well, heaven knows, I have persevered! I keep thinking, hoping, that things might improve here. I want them to improve. I want them to succeed. New refit, which I don't personally like, but that's just a matter of taste. But, as ever, the service is really, really bad. I can't comprehend why, after all the bad reviews, and all the responses they issue about how important customer service is, the manager doesn't start knocking heads together. Staff training is paramount, and it's evidently non existent here. Surly, mumbling, and I even saw one young woman roll her eyes behind an elderly lady's back. It's evident that older people are the mainstay of this place, and if I saw it, others will have. And, just to add insult to injury, there was lipstick on my cup! In this day and age that's totally unacceptable. Heaven knows what you could catch. I sent it back, but I didn't trust it at all. So that's it. Never, ever again. After all, it's not like there isn't any competition, is it?