Primrose Cafe — Restaurant in Bristol

Food was average, service was pretty poor. I was seated upstairs when I arrived, small sign saying 'table service' on the table. Each floor of the restaurant had 2 waiting staff taking orders as well as different staff bringing the orders to the table so although it was a Saturday morning it would be a stretch to say the staff were overwhelmed or rushed off their feet. It took a full 10 mins for someone to take my order, once ordered it came quickly however I had to specifically ask for sugar / Sweetener for my coffee as the waiter brought it out with none and there is none on the tables and ahe didn't offer me any when she brought it. My breakfast arrived and it was well presented, although I always find it strange when Eggs are dumped on unbuttered toast (!)... anyway. I had their version of a big breakfast whatever its called, with an extra paid-for egg and an extra paid-for pork sausage. One of my three pork sausages was sadly off and completely inedible, happens sometimes not a big deal to me really. My issue really lies with the service from this point - no condiments were brought or offered with my food, no staff member checked back with me at any point to ask how everything was or if I needed anything more throughout my entire meal. Had anyone checked I woukd have asked for salt for my Eggs and told them I'd like the inedible sausage changed for another one - no one came though. I finished my meal (inedible sausage sitting on the plate still lol) and sat with knife and fork together waiting for a member of staff for a full 25 minutes, again no-one came. Eventually an exasperated owner/manager type came to take a chair from my table and I managed to ask him for the bill and told him I had an issue. His defences immediately came up, no apology or acknowledgement of my problem was forthcoming - he didn't really say anything which I found astounding! H disappeared off to the till and printed a bill, thrusted the card machine at me while huffing and puffing and I paid. Felt a bit mugged off by the whole thing really due to his attitude. I had high hopes for this breakfast and this place, but it the food certainly wasn't any better than its competitors such as the Bristolian or Jozi etc, and the various issues with inept + huffy staff mean I definitely won't go back. My advice to the Primrose - get your staff to check back with customers, have condiments and sugar easily available, and most importantly match the tone of your customer when things don't go right - I wasn't kicking off when I said something wasn't right, I had a problem with your product that needed acknowledging and fixing. You left it too late to actually fix it so the only solution by the time you remembered I existed was to take it off the bill - shame for you but not my fault. Isolated problems with food are easy to fix for a cafe, bad staff attitudes and poor staff attention maybe not so easy though, certainly...

I've been coming to the Primrose Cafe for several years now, and it feels like the quality of the service has been slowly declining over the last few years to the point that I don't feel it justifies the queues, at least not at the weekend.

After waiting 10 minutes for a spot to open up and be seated, you may find yourself waiting another 20-30 minutes for your order to be taken, and another 30 minutes before your order arrives. Needless to say, don't put yourself through that if you're already hungry or have limited time.

When I visited with my mum, we went through all the above, and when the order did arrive, my mum's English Breakfast was lukewarm and the toast had been burnt. I don't think the wait was worth a mouthful of cold charcoal.

The staff are friendly (the owner/manager less so!), but you can only be so helpful and attentive when you're so busy and understaffed. It's a shame that the cafe can't cope with being as busy as they are on the weekend. You can help yourself and them out by going to one of the many other great cafes and restaurants in Clifton Village. Primrose can be good, but it's...

Food was ok but one member of staff (manager/owner?) was very rude when I asked for one of our drinks to be changed as it didn’t taste right. We’d ordered a fresh OJ which tasted watery and hardly had any orange taste to it at all. I went over to a hallway area & I discreetly spoke to a waitress and asked for a different drink. I particularly made sure that no other customers were in earshot but I wish I hadn’t bothered. A replacement drink shortly arrived and I was then bellowed at by a female member of staff (in front of about 20 other customers, as it was busy) saying that it was definitely fresh juice, that I could go downstairs and look at the OJ machine and that if there was a taste problem then it was down to their orange supplier! Just a simple ‘here’s the replacement drink, sorry about that’ would have been perfectly fine. My teenager was with me and said afterwards ‘wow, that woman was so rude’. So as long as you don’t complain about anything (even when it’s substandard) then you’ll be fine. A brush up on customer service skills is definitely needed as I’ve seen some other reviews...