Tesco Cafe — Restaurant in Basildon

There is no doubt that Tesco is one of the largest of its kind. To be frank, as a family, we do not usually prefer to do our shopping there, but from time to time, we do. We also occasionally go there to dine in at their café, though not very often. It's obvious we've known this place for years, and we have seen the changes and improvements they have made over time.

Recently, we went there for breakfast, assuming that things would be the same as they had been for years. However, things had changed. Their café, which used to be located upstairs, has now been moved downstairs, and unfortunately, it has lost much of its charm in the process. The previous café upstairs had a much warmer, quieter atmosphere, and it truly felt like a cozy café. Now, the café has been relocated to the worst possible spot—right by the entrance, where there's constant foot traffic and noise.

Although they have built a glass wall to separate the seating area, with blurred glass panels to offer some privacy, it still feels awkward due to its location near the entrance and exit. The new décor doesn't have the classic café feel; instead, it resembles the inside of an airport. It's noisy and uncomfortable, and I doubt anyone can truly relax while dining there.

There is an updated ordering system, with self-ordering screens now available, but again, the location of these screens is at the café entrance, which doesn't seem ideal. Maybe it's just me, but it feels poorly thought out. The seating area itself is quite basic—ordinary chairs and tables like any generic café would have. I must point out, however, that they do have some L-shaped, leather-like seats with soft cushioning, which seemed like a good idea. Unfortunately, the noise level in the area is so high that even the glass panels behind the seats don't help, making it impossible to ignore the commotion. This makes you just want to eat quickly and leave.

The food itself was quite disappointing. We had a very basic toasted bread with poorly cooked eggs, and the avocado was spread over the toast like butter. It was neither tasty nor visually appealing. Honestly, I believe anyone without much culinary experience could make a better egg and avocado on toast.

There isn't much to say about the hot drinks either. The tea was served in a standard teapot, just like any other café, nothing special. Overall, it was not a good experience for us, and we definitely will not be visiting the café again unless they decide to relocate it back to its previous upstairs location. I really hope the upstairs section is just being redecorated and hasn't been...

The cafe used to be a nice place while it was upstairs and somewhat secluded, overlooking the entrance, now it is where the customer service area should still be unobstructing the entrance beyond the barriers

The cafe was built downstairs and stilk to this day you cannot use your card to pay at the till, you use a digital touch screen covered in greasy finger prints and then pick up a digital table number which seems never to have been cleaned since it was new

There are some tan seats which look as though they will get filthyquickpy and a number of tables already scratched, stained and dented to choose from, with seating by freezing cold windows provide unobstructed views of people in the car park staring in at you as though you was a zoo animal.

The food is all cooked in the same oil, despite nearly being given someone else's order twice with no checks done at all, and another hostess asking if we had even ordered m anything, rudely, it finally arrived, only the overweight oily server had his badly chewed thumb inside of the bowl, I saw him serving others food and he seemingly makes a habit of putting it in there, which was an enormous out off of the food

The food was greasy beyond comparison, tasting only the hot oil which was evident ally used to cook fish fingers in at some stage of its life, giving the potato a disgusting burnt fish taste, I used the paper napkins, a bundle of five of them, to drain the oil out of a single hash brown croutons, disgusting, I left half of it and well not worth the price, currently £2.60 for a can of coke which can be had in the store for 70p

Parkihg is available, the front of the store fills up quickly and the other spaces are miles away from the entrance now that the utterly stupid decision to close off the middle doors to the store, an important fire escape route, was taken, because they did not want to employ an extra security guard.

The problem when rebranding, is that the rot remains, so long as the same people...

After the major refurbishment of Pitsea Tesco, this cafe has really turned around! It’s now located on the entrance towards your left instead of being upstairs.

Last time I was here, the coffee was disgusting, the food was just prepackaged rubbish and the atmosphere was awful. On appearance, the cafe has been very modernised, with LED lights and self service kiosks shining to the customers. There is seating by the windows for a view of.. well, something.

The food was finally tasty! Had a panini, which had melty cheese and ham. Friend had a breakfast meal which they enjoyed very much. Both of our coffees were delightful and made perfectly.

The staff were attentive, showing smiles and being polite. The service was very fast too - and I saw staff helping out people who couldn’t understand how the self service machines worked.

I’ll be back next time...