Kirkleatham Walled Garden — Local services in England

The place itself has been done really nice, and looks great.

We thought we’d have a nice walk over with our friends and their dog for a nice meal and drink……….no dogs allowed, so it was a takeaway coffee sat on the bench outside. There was a few other people that came with their dogs as well whilst we were there.

They don’t do children’s meals - we brought our son. The prices are ridiculous, hugely overpriced. The man on the front desk was quite miserable and short. We didn’t venture into the gardens as we had the dog but they did look quite nice from a distance. We had a little walk round where they had some plants for sale, and they were also ridiculously priced. There is a charge to go into the gardens (I think it was £4 per adult) and I believe that that lasts a year so that is pretty good,

All in all our first experience was pretty rubbish. Which is a shame because as I said the place itself is absolutely lovely. I’m hoping that these points are just because they haven’t been open long and that maybe in the near future they adapt and change things to suit the wider audience.

I think it’s council owned/run, with a company from Durham in there doing the catering side of life. Ideally a local business would have been great just like Sophellies was. Their food was amazing and the prices were excellent. The prices here are definitely bonkers though. I remember a similar thing happening at the beacon in the town when that little cafe first opened.

Anyway I genuinely hope that it takes off. We will definitely go back and see how things are later...

Today visited the cafe with a friend. The gates were not open when we arrived so we're the first to enter the cafe from closing yesterday. We chose a table with chairs to decided what we would have to eat and drink. The table had food stuck to , so did the chair I went to sit on. We selected another table this was the same, food and dried liquid marks. Another table, the same us there was food pieces and crumbs under neath it, we sat here. There were 4 mbers of staff behind the counter which looked lovely and the part cakes, scones crossaints, plus other items of food. My friend had a scone which she said was dried out , I had a crossaint which was cold and flavourless, my friend had an Americano she said it was very nice and I had tea which was OK. The staff were very pleasant, but it took them a long time to fulfill the hot drinks orders, some how serving the 2nd customer with their hot drinks before the first customer had been given theirs , then the 3rd customer getting theirs before the 1st customer had theirs. But perhaps its because they are all new to this and will get it right as the time goes. It's very very cold in the cafe due to all the double doors being wide open and a very cold wind blowing through them. It has the potential to be a nice...

No menus available to look at When we got there there was a queue of 4 people in front of us... We waited 30 minutes in that queue of 4 people before we got served!!! Absolutely ridiculous. I work in customer service and if I took about 10 minutes to take 1 person's order I'd be sacked! I work in a more hectic/busy environment than this cafe. There was no delay on the food (it wasn't busy), it was just the staff being really slow. When we did get a chance to order I tried speaking to the woman but she ignored me and spoke to someone else... That was right after she asked what I'd like to order, so mid conversation. Very rude. Didn't feel great after that. We ordered sandwiches only and it took 20 minutes to bring us the food, I dare to think about how long it would take if we ordered hot food. Food was overpriced for what it was but the drinks were brilliant prices/quality. As soon as we seemed to be finished with our meal the staff came over and basically tried to scare us away to get us out.

The only redeeming factor is that they had a variety of gluten free options and it didn't cost any extra compared to the regular food.

If you're peckish and in the area... Go to the other cafe a 5 minute walk away. I imagine anything is better...