Grounded Horfield — Restaurant in Bristol

As a sleep deprived new parent I stepped out to grab a coffee. I headed along to Grounded on Glos Rd Bristol, where we have been going with friends & family since it opened a few years ago. During this time I had watched the majority of their staff come and go.

Today I wanted to change my baby's nappy and went to find the changing toilet. It was locked. To maintain quality of these facilities, a number of cafes I have been to require you to ask for the key from a member of staff.

I asked the waitress what the locked door meant. The waitress curtly replied "someone is in it". I could tell she thought I was an idiot. I had encountered this waitresses thinly veiled contempt for customers before. I went back to my seat and waited. Then when I saw that it might have been vacated I headed past the kitchen to the changing room. As I walked past the open kitchen door I could see the back of the waitress as she proceeded to tell the entire Grounded staff what an idiot I was "...yeah what did he think? That we would sneak in and lock the toilet door from the inside?" Laughter. The manager was among her amused crowd. I felt sad and small. Working in the hospitality industry you would expect the staff to be selected a little more carefully with regards to their loathing of paying customers. I glanced around at the once popular cafe's empty chairs and figured I wouldnt be coming back either. There are tonnes of other cafes along that stretch of road including Tinto, Boston Tea Party and Lashings, all within a couple hundred yards and all with lovely members of staff. Cafe Grounded is not parent or baby friendly and their staff are incredibly rude behind their half smiles. I suggest you keep walking for another five minutes and find a nicer cafe to feel...

This review is 1 star because they refused service to us because of my partner's peanut and nut allergy. It was also explained to us that the cafe's policy was to not serve anyone with an allergy. I am not sure about intolerances.

While this was explained away as an insurance thing, it is a choice. My partner's allergy is not a choice. Their menu did not have nuts prominently on it and she said she was happy to accept the inherent risks, but we were still denied service. She has eaten in plenty of places with more nuts on the menu because they made the choice to accommodate everyone through good hygiene practices.

We were only told about this policy 10-15 minutes after we had paid and ordered. I had to specifically ask for the coffees to be refunded as well, though they did do this when I pointed out we'd want to get coffees with our food when we found somewhere that would serve us.

As an aside, the flat white I managed a couple of sips of was ok, but would be even better if the milk wasn't overheated. As a rule of thumb, if steam is rising from a milk-based espresso drink,...

ordered 3 cooked breakfasts; one vegan and two normal. one of the normal breakfasts came out with missing items (egg and tomato.. which are staple items of a full english) along with the vegan breakfast which was missing beans and that was half cold. it then took another 20 minutes for the third breakfast to be brought out also with items missing, by which time we had finished our meal by the time the last one was brought out. we had spend £45 on breakfast that just wasn't right in any way. no explanations given from staff as to the delay considering we ordered two of the exact same thing. I would be more understanding if they were busy but they were not. very bizarre experience and won't...