Greens & Co. — Restaurant in Galway

My mam and I popped into Greens and Co today in the late afternoon, looking for a quite place to grab a coffee. The place was empty bar one table in the back right hand corner.

My mam is (quite obviously) disabled. Amongst other things she is almost without walk and is 80% blind. When accompanied, she travels on a mobility scooter, a neat one, less than the size of an average wheelchair which she needs to use to travel to a table then folds up quite small for storage purposes. I also had a 1 year old child in a buggy.

When we arrived inside the restaurant, it being more or less empty, my mam proceeded to wheel herself to a table. In trying to manoever around the tables, she banged into one of the empty tables and a chai, causing them to move slightly and essentially got stuck between the tables.

There were no customers at any of these tables but she got embarrassed and in trying to get herself out of the situation got more flustered and more stuck. The staff member on duty then came over. We assumed, as staff in most shops and restaurants are, that she would be kind and help us to the most appropriate seating. In fact she was quite rude, huffing and had a scowl on her face and made it clear that she was annoyed that my mother had come in in her mobility scooter. This made my mam very embarrassed and again harder for her to manoeuvre out of the situation, getting more stuck.

When we eventually got mam off the scooter and it folded up, the staff member reprimanded us by pointing to the sign that said please wait to be seated (which we had not seen). She then placed us in the window seat, possibly the most awkward seat for a buggy and a disabled person and made a point of moving the folded mobility scooter away from where i had neatly stored it, again huffing, despite there being no customers nearby.

At this stage my mother was very embarrassed but we felt we couldn't leave. So we ordered coffee and cake. In giving our order I asked for a latte and she immediately threw her arms up in the air, rolled her eyes and told us they don't serve cows milk. We did not realise it was a vegan place, but this was of course no problem at all and I ordered almond milk. I had never actually specified I wanted cows milk to begin with, so i can only assume that she she decided to make assumptions to the kind of 'customers' we were.

She continued to be generally rude in every interaction until we left. She didn't say thank you or make any acknowledgement when we paid. She just said the price and there was silence afterwards.

It is worth saying that the coffee we received was very good and the pastry was possibly one of the best I have ever had. So excellent marks for the food. But the whole interaction was generally not pleasant. What I have described might not seem like a big deal to most people, but to someone who can't walk, is acutely aware of their disability in an able bodied society and already (and unfairly) feels like a burden in needing extra accomodations, how u are received in a shop or a cafe is everything. Today my mam was made to feel unwelcome and like her disability was a hindrance.

Thankfully this is a rare occurance in Galway, but on this point Greens and co. could...

The place is beautiful with lovely interior. The food we got on both days was fantastic, we really enjoyed it 😊. However, on our second visit we were utterly shocked at the service and the attitude of one particular young waitress. We proceeded to a table without waiting to be seated as there was no staff available at the time, there were many tables available and we thought this wouldn’t be an issue. This waitress approached us in an incredibly frosty manner and told us that we should have waited to be seated. Her manner and tone was nothing but outright rude and unfriendly. We apologised for not doing so but didn’t think it was such a big deal as there was no one ahead of us waiting and as mentioned, there was plenty of free tables. Our encounter with this waitress came as a shock and made us feel very uncomfortable and although we stayed for our meal, it certainly put a dampener on our experience. After reading a couple of other reviews of someone else having received unfriendly service and staff not wanting to be there, we certainly felt that this was the case with this particular staff member. I understand how demanding and stressful working in such environments can be but I have never before experienced such a hostile staff member and the way that we were spoken to was completely unacceptable. It was such a shame as everything else was spot on and the other staff that we encountered were friendly and appeared interested in what...

You're not allowed to be on your laptop at certain times, I was literally ordered to put it away despite sitting at a single table just sipping my coffee and working, minding my own business. I found it to be rude the way it was demanded of me and totally unnecessary, I wasn't planning to stay that long anyway. I first got a coffee and it was fine and then a little later I ordered something else, and it was right after that that they - (somewhat sharply) - told me to put my laptop away; which, obviously, if I'd known that it was an imprescindible requirement to my being there I wouldn't have ordered anything else as the whole point was for me to get work done, I would have just left!! so it was very convenient timing for them.. Even having set this rule for the place they might be a little more flexible, if they at all value their clientele. Anyway, it's a shame, really, as it's the only central vegan place I'm aware of. Also, this is my first ever review, but I just thought I should leave this for anyone who might get the crazy idea of bringing their laptop along for a work/study sesh, you've...