Windowbox Cafe — Restaurant in Birmingham

decent cafe. i’m getting laser treatments monthly from the clinic across the road and living such a distance away means public transport gets me here quite early

to kill time, i visit the window box cafe every time i have a treatment. i’ve been several times now and have had great experiences bar one. it is an insanely busy place which isn’t their fault; they’re at least upfront about the wait times. the interior is also beautiful

the coffees and pastry are delicious, particularly the iced lattes! the people at windowbox make damn good coffee. the food is simply the cherry on the cake (pun intended), the pancakes are delicious from here

so yummy and the service is also good. service with a smile, bar one staff member. that staff member sat me down and walked off while i was mid sentence. she came up to my table and rudely asked if she could have a chair from my table. i smiled and said yes and in return was met with an eye roll

she also kept watching me from across the cafe which made me uncomfortable. it may be because i’m a WOC but it was very odd. particularly since the rest of the staff were incredibly sweet and polite, it was just her. i’ve only seen her once so hopefully i never run into her again and am served by literally anyone else

edit: read some other reviews complaining about a staff member who matches the staff i am referring to. maybe this is something for the manager to look into. it really ruins the experience for a customer! and i know that this cafe is otherwise wonderful because i’ve enjoyed my visits when she wasn’t present. a great cafe bar that one mishap and definitely...

There is plenty of welcoming, inclusive and better places in Birmingham, STAY AWAY!

This was my second time visiting this place, I took my family back because I enjoyed the food, I left embarrassed and humiliated. Things went awfully wrong when we were served the wrong item and had to actually have an encounter with staff members.

The manager charged to the table in an aggressive manner and began to threaten us with cameras like we were some kind of criminals, this was even before we got a word in!

The item being incorrect is the least of the matter here, his aggressive tone, adamancy to not listen and lack of professionalism was SHOCKING! We are all working professionals, we work as medics for the NHS and are committed to serving people regardless of their background and ethnicity, this was discrimination in its finest. It is deeply concerning how disgusting humans can be to one another in 2022. The manager needs to be up-skilled and staff need training.

To make matters worse, we spoke to a colleague about the matter who started smirking and laughing like it was all a big joke (ALL WHITE BTW).

Can someone please explain how it is demanding to ask if they do NHS and ask to be seated near the window? Of course, they need some kind of justification for their bad behaviour. The manager went as far saying ‘we are non-white owners and we have non white members of staff’. It’s that ignorant comment again, I can’t be racist I have loads of black and Asians friends LOL!

It’s a matter that could have been resolved through good communication and decorum but the staff members have none of...

We used to go here years ago and loved it but haven’t been in the area for a while so was really looking forward to returning. Unfortunately however we could not have been more disappointed. When we entered it said one of the tills was down so we thought we would order by the QR code for ease. Unfortunately however every hot drink we tried to order with our food came up as unavailable to order so we were told we would have to go to the till after all. We ordered at the till, our hot drinks came quite quickly and then we waited for our food. Bearing in mind we only ordered a toastie and scrambled egg on toast 25 minutes later we were still waiting. What was more concerning was we were sat near the till and it took nearly 35 minutes for anyone to realise we hadn’t had our order. When we finally said we hadn’t she said the order had just gone through but this was a lie as we then saw her show the lady in the kitchen the receipt which it appears she hadn’t seen. We didn’t have the time to wait for it to be started from then so asked for a refund, which the girl said she would get the manager to do. What really capped it off to me was despite the fact we were kept waiting for 40 minutes and ended up leaving without anything to eat the ‘manager’ didn’t even have the good grace or customer service skills to give us a full refund, he still charged us for our drinks. It’s amazing how somewhere we had been looking forward to go back to for weeks could give us such a...