Broken Dock — Restaurant in Bristol

Didn’t feel very welcomed here at all.

When I arrived, the lady told me it was ‘table service’ (which is absolutely fine, I wanted to sit in) but she said it in such a way, as if she wanted my reaction to be “Never mind I’ll leave”. Like, she even went out of her way to try and argue the point of me sitting in by saying something along the lines of “I mean, table service is even for tea. It’s everything”. Imagine that quote in a sarcastic patronising way.

I then stood at the till because they had good looking cakes on ‘display’, so I was just looking at which one I fancied. The same lady was looking at me as if to say, why are you looking at our cakes, it’s table service... then she comes over and reminds me it was table service as I was looking at the display of cakes. At this point I did confront her and say “am I not allowed to look at the cakes or something?” Which she then suddenly acted like it was all fine for me too. Classic.

I then ask the lady, before sitting down, if they had WiFi and if I could have the WiFi.... straight up refused and would only give it once I sat down, because, you guessed it...table service. At this point I’m 100% sure this lady does not want me in this place. I don’t know if it’s because I looked ghetto or what but she clearly wasn’t having any of it.

I then sit down. By this point I’m genuinely uncomfortable. Again, not sure what her beef was, but it was a sunny day, I was super respectful and polite but she just wanted to get at me for no reason.

7-10 mins waiting. No table service or access given for the WiFi lol.

So I quietly left, went to Costa, asked the guy for WiFi, he gave it with no questions asked, I looked at the cakes, ordered my Tea and Cake and sat in Costa....

Overall a fantastic little place and not over priced, especially for the area. We were a group of four and was greeted with a friendly service. The layout and design is contemporary with a very nice panoramic painting covering the back wall. The front facade consists of multiple bifolding doors which are great for those sunny days and warm nights. For food we ordered risotto, avocado and poached eggs with a tomato salsa, the chunky bacon in flat bread and a portion of double dunked chunky chips. Now the first issue is a matter of personal taste and perception. The double dunked chips we're not actually chips but rather potato wedges with the skin still on. Many people like this option, in fact the other 3 members of the group loved them. I, however, do not like the skin on variety. There is definitely a difference in taste so they should be described as such on the menu. Admittedly they were cooked to perfection, a soft crisp on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside but unfortunately I just don't like the flavour when the skin has been left on. The poached eggs and avocado dish was amazing, runny soft eggs over avocado layered toast accompanied with a sweet and juicy tomato salsa. The bacon and flat bread fell a bit flat. It was more panceta than chunky bacon with a chewy under cooked rind swimming in grease and the flatbread (large tortilla) was chewy and rubbery. The risotto was the worse dish. 3 of us tried and had the exact same response. Tasted of watered peas, very bland and well over cooked so it was like a pile of mush. The service was great and as I paid the bill I explained our thoughts and it was nice to see the chef to actually listen and appreciate the feed back. Overall,...

Don't go at 4:30 on a sunny Wednesday. There were barely any customers and 2 staff working - 1 behind the bar and 1 front of house, and yet the front of house person was devastatingly slow to greet us, answering the phone instead of seating us. He was then more concerned about clearing empty tables than giving us a menu, I had to ask for one. I then had to go inside to order because he didn't come out to check on us. We'd been at the site for about 15 minutes at this point and didn't want to waste any more time, and it would have been a waste of that 15 minutes to give up and go somewhere else. I've given 2 stars instead of 1 because the cocktails we ordered were tasty and actually arrived fairly promptly, so kudos to the person behind the bar. Finally, I had to go inside to find the waiter to pay him as we'd been finished with drinks for ages and there was no sign of him, just generally an absent kind of guy. We walked past at about 7pm and it was a lot busier and people were eating, so it's obviously popular and we were unlucky that the guy who served us wanted a...