Grounds Café Birches Valley — Restaurant in Cannock Chase

I visited this coffee shop (08/06/25) to buy 2 small coffees. My coffees were with me within around 2 minutes by the young baristas working hard in the back, crafting 2 honeycomb lattes which I must say were delicious, however for the cost of £10.45 you should expect this would be the case.

Upon gathering my coffees and getting the kids ready to leave I was rudely told to move by one of the older workers with short black hair, and she definitely did not like the fact that I had something to say about that being a customer of the coffee shop she is supposed to provide the best service to her customers and not just raise your voice at a family with 2 young children gathering their belongings to leave.

I myself manage a well known high end coffee shop and our main priority is our customers and the connection we make with them, so as you can imagine I was in utter shock when this lady had told me, my partner and my children to move so she could stock the fridges. I honestly wouldn’t have minded moving out of her way however the tone she spoke to me and my 3 year old son left me outraged, so I had to tell her that this isn’t the way she should speak to her customers- she wouldn’t t even look at me after.

Although my experience on this particular day wasn’t great to say the least I have been a number of times and the coffee and food is great- expensive, but great. After today unfortunately I can’t rate any higher than 1 star as customers are the most important people in your store- without any customers there would be no sales, therefore customer connection has to be a priority.

I really do hope the older lady with short black hair is given some real training on how to deal with customers in a more polite manner as I for one would certainly not take her in at my store- regardless of her...

Very rude male worker (looked like manager/owner- had longish light brown hair). All the other female workers were lovely and the food, although very pricey, was great. However, since arriving this man made me and my sister feel like an inconvenience. He was first getting visibly frustrated whilst we were deciding- even though the place was practically empty. He kept trying to hurry us to the till and was clearly in a rush to leave. When another customer did enter the cafe he was quick to instruct them to go in front of us in the queue, even though we were ready to order at this point- this happened multiple times. I asked for a vegan ice cream as I didn’t know where they were and he told me ‘they are over there you can grab it yourself if there’s any left’ in an annoyed tone of voice. He then proceeds to rush through taking my order and puts the card machine on for me to pay half way through me telling him what I wanted. This caused him to have to cancel the payment and finish taking my order, a simple issue that could have been fixed by better communication but yet again I was made to feel like the problem. We also witnessed this man have similar communication issues with his staff. Overall I found this man dismissive and rude and he dampened my experience of this otherwise alright cafe. Kindness takes nothing and you should treat every customer the same even if you are eager to go home. Everyone deserves...

We visited Grounds Café on Wednesday 9th July whilst holidaying in The Peak District. We did a lovely walk around Cannock Chase Forest as we are FE National Members. We decided to stop off for a coffee and a bite to eat. Unfortunately (as other reviews have said), the gentleman that served us was very rude, blunt and unhelpful. We asked if we got the discount that we usually get in FE Cafés, but he shut me down before I even finished my sentence. He was so rude. We ordered two coffees and two sausage rolls. I have to say, the coffees were ok but the sausage rolls went straight into the bin. That’s unusual for my husband as he would eat most things, but his went in the bin too. It was awful. Total waste of money. When we visit Cannock Chase again next year, we will be taking a packed lunch. If I could give the food rating zero...