Dobbies Restaurant — Restaurant in Ashford

Food is nice. The atmosphere is as you would expect for a garden centre. The worst part of the experience is the queueing system they implement. You stand in line for ages (20mins plus) to order food, all hot food and cakes need to be ordered from the same place. There are no menus in easy access. No large display board. You have to walk up and down the serving area to find several small menus on the counter top, all with different options on them. It's very awkward and makes it look like you are trying to push in the queue. Then once you order, you have to stand and wait for it to be prepared, including making of sandwiches, and making and toasting of panini's etc. Once you receive your food, you have to queue a second time for a hot drink... where there is usually only 1 person serving. By this time your food is getting cold. Lastly you need to queue a 3rd time for the till. It's beyond difficult when you have children in tow. You can't even sit them at a table to wait because it's all out of sight. The whole place is completely overwhelmed. The queue stretches out the cafe and into the shop area. This isn't the place to go for a quick lunch at all. I would like to make this a regular visit but it feels too much...

The place has really gone down hill. At 2pm on a Saturday there were almost no cakes left, no scones, nothing savoury and a total lack of atmosphere. Not what it used to be which is a real shame.

Also work mentioning that the kids play area has been out of action for months with signs abruptly staying they have no eta to have...

We went to your restaurant on Friday the 1st December waited for 8minuets for the attention of a server then I had to call for attention again waited a long while for our food that was yucky the queue for tea was so long we gave up by the time we paid the food was cold .WE WILL NOT BE RETURNING. +TO EXPENSIVE....