Beach Cafe Jersey (The Hungry Whale)

We had a rather confusing experience here. We were out on the beach for a wander and a paddle and passed by this hut - we saw customers sitting out on sun loungers and thought that this looked like a pleasant way to spend an hour or two. We ordered a few drinks then helped ourselves to some sun loungers from a stack beside some beach toys, etc.

A very grumpy member of staff came charging out and was exceptionally impatient with us. She directly accused us of having bad manners and told us we were meant to inform her first before touching the chairs. We immediately apologised and assumed we had mistakenly taken something that had a hire charge or something. But no, it turned out she simply wanted to carry them the 10 yards herself, rather than one of us carrying them. It was a very disorientating and embarrassing situation - we didn’t quite understand the fuss or what we had done that warranted such a severe rebuke in front of other customers. It was an innocent error -literally, I lifted up a sun lounger. But she carried on in the same way for some time, saying, “It is manners to ask first”, “Do you have a problem?” “When they are stacked, it should be obvious that you ask permission”, etc. She treated us throughout with utter contempt.

There were no signs up anywhere to this effect and it was an honest mistake. I am sure the lady may well have been privately annoyed at another set of tourists not following her system, but her manner was needlessly brusque and rude throughout and ruined the experience entirely. We the. asked if our child could use the beach toys beside the loungers or if we also needed to ask permission for this first and she seemed to regard this as a personal attack and became very defensive and condescending again. It was all really bewildering - I don’t know what she had to gain by berating us in such a harsh way.

In fairness, the coffee was very good indeed - we had been intending to hang around and get some food later, but it was just so awkward, we decided to leave. I’m sure all the positive reviews for the food and coffee are well-deserved, but I thought I should forewarn potential customers to keep their hands away from the sun loungers as it’s not...

Dom & Katerina hosted a brilliant coffee masterclass, these amazing baristas shared their love for coffee and helped 9 of us learn how to make great cup; there is no better way to spend a Sunday morning than drinking limitless coffee of all variations be it an Espresso, or Cappuccino, Cortado, or Machiato with lovely humans like these two 💕 & have a giggle at our own latte art 😆mostly we realised coffee made by a professional like Dom or Katerina is always the best 👏🏻 can’t wait for Hungry Whale to reopen at Long Beach for...

What a lovely experience today! We had the Jersey Burger, mozzarella, tomato and pesto toastie, cheesy fries and a portion of fries. The burger was the best I've tasted in a long while, with the potato bread roll being something I have never had before. The toastie and fries were also lovely, along with well chilled canned drinks. My daughter had a lovely homemade melon slushie. A lovely place to have breakfast or lunch with excellent service. They even have an area with free to use...