Cafe Mauds — Restaurant in Belfast

Staff and service: We came here for a bit of late night dessert and coffee, as it was the only place near us that was still open. We were actually looking forward to it as we had read many good reviews. We were waiting in line hoping to get a decent enough table. While waiting, we were standing by the door. Some of my family members were already on queue for ordering. The staff then asked us if we could sit in the middle aisle while waiting. We had a baby on the pram and an elderly with us so it was very uncomfortable. They had high chairs and since it was the middle aisle, people were passing by and would bump into us. We didnt mind because we had understood the store was quite busy that time. By the time we got our orders, there was an empty table, it was fit enough for us, we had hoped to be seated so we started to transfer our things but then the staff approached us and said we could not sit in there as she had to give to it to another group that was still queueing. We had clearly came in before them. Even though we had asked multiple times to be seated in a table, the staff still refused and insisted that she will be giving it to other customers. We even asked why she would not let us sit on a table, she just plainly refused and gave us a pathetic excuse saying “they were not allowed to”. The staff was obviously nonchalant to our needs and requests. Also, we noticed that when we were on the till to give our orders, the staff was very impatient. We havent finished giving out all our orders yet, but she just turned her back on us. As a result, some of our orders were wrong. Their staff probably need more training on customer service, which I think is very essential when working in this environment. A very bad first experience. I would probably not be coming back here anytime soon and would not recommend it to others. P. S. we noticed we were the only non caucasian customers there at that time, but I would give them a benefit of the doubt and not assume that the staff were rac**t towards us. Food: desserts were okay and pricey. Coffee: nothing special and quite expensive. Atmosphere: not enough space but they had nice and...

I regularly attend cafe mauds as the atmosphere is nice. But.. on attending the cafe yesterday, I purchased coffee and salads for my friend and I, we decided to sit outside as the weather was nice at the time. It started to rain and there was no canopy above us, so we decided to head inside. I asked the waitress if we could sit at the 4 seated table unoccupied and she said yes. Then another member of staff sitting at a 2 seater table on her phone (short hair - looked as though she was managing the place) said “that table is taken”. I looked around, there was no customers waiting in the queue and no one appeared to be waiting on a table.

I then asked if there was anywhere else we could sit. The staff sitting down ignored what I asked, so we were left standing, holding our food and drinks wondering what we should do (I was very embarrassed). I then approached the waitress on the floor and asked her if there was anywhere else we could sit and she asked the girl sitting at the table on her phone if she could seat us at the small table at the front door and the girl sitting down said “no, we don’t use this table”. I found her approach to be very rude and dismissive, customer service was very poor.

We then decided to ask the waitress for a take away cup to put our coffees in and I just left the salad. The experience has left me disappointed...

Over all a mediocre experience, the food was nice but it wasn't made with care (i got a sandwich with mozzarella and tomato, my partner got a caesar salad which he couldn't finish as he didn't enjoy it as much). This was my first experience in this mauds, I've had desserts and breakfasts from the other locations which have been really nice. I would recommend mauds for their desserts and sweet stuff but not for lunch. Staff lack communication and there's a lot of self service such as going up to order, trying to find where they keep the cutlery and bringing down your own coffee. We don't mind doing self service but when my partner ordered our coffee the staff member just turned around and started to make it, without saying whether to wait on it or sit down. Furthermore, when our food was brought out we would have appreciated a staff member letting us know where we could get our cutlery from. I would have took a photo of the food but we were too busy trying to figure out where the cutlery was. I should add that when we went there were only a few other small tables in, the place was pretty quiet. I usually like mauds but I definitely won't be back to this location for lunch, if you're a tourist there's other locations in Belfast to eat with better service for the same price. I also wouldn't recommend vegetarians going to...