Whins Country Kitchen — Restaurant in Chorley

Booked a table, ordered drinks, coffee tasted like one of those petrol station machine ones and wasn’t even hot- cannot have been from a proper machine. Ordered food…

Waited what felt like ages for the food to arrive, despite it not being hugely busy. Partners breakfast was average… pretty small for £13. The avocado on toast that I ordered came on a single basic slice of pre-sliced bread like you would get from the corner shop, two thin anaemic slices of salad tomato, a single cherry tomato on the side, the smallest amount of “micro herbs” you’ve ever seen and a tiny spot of houmous. The avocado itself was brown in places and rock hard in others. Not seasoned, only lemon I’m guessing. Just short of £8 for something I make better at home. This may be the only cafe I’ve seen serve avocado on toast on basic bread like this. Could easily be elevated to match the price with fresh cut sourdough or similar and properly seasoned.

Dessert. My partners brownie came out right away and was great. He finished that and mine finally came out… the Creme brûlée. This consisted of warm custard that hadn't been set in the fridge with a tiny shard of caramelised sugar on top that was hardly there, with a tooth breakingly hard “shortbread” on the side that tasted like a baby’s rusk biscuit. I told the server that it wasn’t edible and she made the chef come out so I could explain it to him in person. He said “why don’t you like it”, as if it was a ‘me’ problem, which was a bit awkward. Also half the dessert menu wasn’t available so early in the day!

I was offered another dessert but since the whole breakfast had taken 1 hour 45 mins (I’m not even sure how that’s possible), I declined. The staff were lovely, (although unaware of how bad service was because I’m a coward and can’t complain in person) and came out after me with a slice of carrot cake to go and wouldn’t take no for an answer. This was also not good.

Staff really nice but I wonder if they have much hospitality experience or maybe they had a single person in the kitchen, who knows. View is 10/10 though.

£35.

Side note: the entire outdoor area had a wasp infestation and we were provided with a swatter-bat thing that electrocutes and kills them… quite cruel and not very veggie / vegan! My advice would be not to put a bottle of alcohol gel on each table because this attracts them.

I...

Had such high hopes for this place but due to horrific service will never be visiting again. We booked the Greek Taster evening. All was going well despite seeing a few serving hiccups. The food was, on the whole, lovely. I unfortunately noticed an annoying habit of the more mature waitress which made me feel uncomfortable. Everytime she passed round the back of my seat she rubbed her hand across it and even rested dirty plates on it at one point when speaking to another customer. My partner and I switched seats just prior to the main course to try and enjoy the evening. The waitress asked if we'd switched due to the sun I politely pointed out her frustrating habit. Instead of apologising or even saying she didn't realise she did it and saying she'd be more careful in future, she angrily said she didn't, only just stopping short of calling me a lier, I felt verbally attacked. When she brought our food I told her I didn't appreciate being called a lier her response was an extremely abrupt "no one else has ever complained, I'll take your word for it"-clearly not doing! That was our evening completely ruined, I couldn't stomach anything more to eat. I spoke to the manager who did apologise and said she'd speak to the waitress involved. Yes, we have been compensated by our drinks (we only had 3 and 2 halves between us) and 50% being taken off the food bill (having not eaten the 2 main courses out of the 5 course menu), but I felt no other option but to leave half way through the evening. I'm utterly shocked that someone within that industry would dream of speaking to a customer in such a way. Fabulous location and fantastic ethos but seriously look at who...

I went to Whins three times last week with various different friends. Unfortunately the staff are quite inflexible in allowing customers to sit at the tables next to the windows (which have the best views). One of the days I went in - there were four window seats available, yet staff insisted that we sat in middle of the cafe (on the tables without a view). Staff said the window tables had bookings and I said we would happily move tables if guests for all four of the free window seat tables arrived. However, whilst we were there - not one guest for any of the four tables arrived. The staff seem unable to think outside the box and allocate tables according to common sense as opposed to rigid, illogical rules. The best part of going to a cafe like Whins is the fantastic view so to be so rigid and not allow customers to sit at table which are otherwise empty is not good for business and ultimately will be the the business’ detriment. The second time I went to Whins, I experienced the exact same situation with the tables as the first time - we weren’t allowed to sit at the window tables even though they were empty the entire time we were there. The person who was running the place also didn’t seem over friendly which was a shame. I’d really loved to go back and have coffees/ lunch at Whins but I don’t want to be faced with the awkward situation again of wanting a good window seat table which is free and being told we can’t sit there, alas we won’t be...