Cafe Coffea — Restaurant in Birmingham

Went to Cafe Coffea for Sunday lunch. At first glance, the decor is nice and the place is inviting. We found an empty table and sat. But it took a long while before it was cleaned and prepared for us.

You do have to go and order at the till - though there wasn’t any apparent signs indicating this.

We wanted to order the Sunday roast chicken, but as my wife doesn’t like chicken breast we just wanted to make sure we could order chicken legs instead. The waitress went to check with the chef and came back stating the chef said they’ll serve us whatever they have. So I asked, doesn’t the chef know what he has. The waitress went back again and came back and confirmed that is a mixture of chicken breast and chicken leg. We didn’t want to take the chance so ordered the pulled lamb of leg instead. We had also ordered two karak chai, a mocha, white chocolate and a French toast.

After about 45 mins the waitress came and said they didn’t have any Karak chai and if wanted to order something else instead. So we replaced it with Moroccan mint tea and a flat white coffee.

After a further 30 mins our order arrived. But before arriving it had gone to the wrong table and when those customers said it wasn’t what they had ordered, the food eventually made its way at to our table. After another 20 mins, half of the drinks came and the remaining came after a further 20 mins (though they mixed up the Moroccan mint tea with just green tea).

We were quite disappointed as the lamb was quite tough and had no flavouring. The menu stated it would be served in a bed of rice with salad and pickle. But there was no bed of rice. Instead just a very small cup amount of rice (quite hard as not cooked fully) in the middle of the tray and certainly no sign of any pickle.

My wife was so disappointed to receive this having waited over an hour. So she didn’t eat it. I don’t like wasting food so ate her portion with the help of our son.

While we were waiting for our food, we observed a brother complaining to the waitress that he had been waiting for food for over an hour for himself and his children so he was very disappointed.

We also saw at least another two additional tables of sisters complaining about the long wait for their food. Another table was complaining their food is watery and sent it back twice.

Yet another table of sisters complained their food was too bland and watery and demanded a refund and then left (hardly touching their food).

This was our first experience of this place and a very disappointing one indeed. There appears to be some good reviews. So not sure what happened today. Perhaps their usual chef and the regular staff are on leave? But if these are the permanent staff then the service and food was very poor. Won’t be going back again.

I hope the management take note and train the staff well and get a better chef. It’s such a nice place with its parking, location and decor. But a real shame on the experience...

Would not recommend! Not professional. If I could give below zero stars I would!

We arrived around 12pm to get some breakfast before we had to pick up my son from Madrasa at 1pm expecting to eat and be done by then. So we ordered at 12:06, two breakfasts and 2 karak Chai’s.

At 12:35 we are still waiting and nervously looking at the clock thinking in the back of our minds will we make it in time to pick up my son and have the breakfast. So we approached a member of staff who told us to sit down and they will find out. A member of staff came out and confirmed our order and said it will be 1 minute. We explained we were in a rush and had to pick up our son from Madrasa.

At 12:44 one of the two breakfasts arrived, toast was cold and hard and beans were mildly hot like it was made a while ago. At this point I had already made my mind up I wanted to go so we got up to complain. They kept telling us to sit down it’s coming or they can give us as a take away. My wife showed them the toast and they agreed it was hard and the manager had come out. After waiting for over 41 minutes I had enough. I said to them I do not even want a refund I’m going I have to pick up my son and I am very disappointed and angry. At this point I left the shop and wife continued to wait and speak to the manager. Their policy is food should be ready after 10 minutes of ordering.

Manager came out no apologies or anything trying to deny toast was rock hard and being a bit difficult. They would not face facts that they took very long to make it. Which felt insulting!!

Overall nice place, lovely decor! Looks like a hidden gem. Ample parking. But to be fair you are only paying for this not the food or service. Wouldn’t come again! Loads of other places out there that are better.

In my opinion I think they were too busy and had less kitchen staff making the food, the manager might have even been making it for all I know as she took ages to come out! Wait times are ridiculous and staff need training instead of trying to fob the customer off and need to be more honest about the their timings. Or even as a complimentary gesture maybe a free drink, cake etc if they know they have been a while but they will learn but by then they have already lost a customer. After reading the reviews I feel consolation as I am not the only one who had a...

So this place has been our go to for some time now. It had some teething issues at the start, but as time went on they improved. I never thought id ever come to this point where I would leave a review such as this.

Today's order was so awful, so bad, so heartbreaking that unfortunately this place no longer a place we would give benefit of doubt to.

First big point of bad customer service is no telephone no. We can't call to complain, or tell them what's missing or what's happened to our takeaway order. Which leaves us to leaving reviews that can effect their business, which I don't like to do. But today's order was so gut wrenching awful that we had to bin the food and drinks.

The recipes have clearly changed and adapted to cheaper bread and other components don't match with their original dishes. The mushroom truffle was soggy from the layering of the bread and pesto, tasteless, cheap bread used, no truffle, no creaminess like it used to so it was extremely dry and just big block of cheese thrown in which wasn't melted so that wasn't mozzarella used but normal cheddar. The mushrooms were these big ugly hefty pieces, I don't get the life of me why the chef doesn't cut them down. The second toastie was triple cheese tomatoe. Awful salty soggy thing. Once again cheap 2 pieces of bread cut up and layered with gosh knows what. How is one suppose to eat something like that. What's the layering for? Keep your toasties how they used to be. All dishes got binned after 2 bites. It tasted naff to the point I was heaving to vomit. We had 2 cappuccino both got binned too. Tasted just like milk, didn't taste nothing like a Cappuccino, we asked for sugar, there was non in it, we opened the cup to add more sugar and noticed the cup was half full!!!!!! So you charging the same price as a cup that you give in the shop when we dine in but when we take out, you give half the size????

I'm really disappointed.. had there been phone no, I would have called them and demanded a refund and returned the food to them.

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