Lauras Kitchen — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

My partner's name is Laura, so of course we needed to visit this place. The food was pretty good, on the basis of the food alone, I'd be happy to recommend it. The food is a bit on a expensive side, but tasty food is well worth paying for.

However, the food costs more when sitting in. This is not that uncommon a practice, but this place takes it to a whole new level. A cappuccino for £3.60 is just ridiculous. If you're more expensive than Starbucks and not a speciality coffee place (and this place is certainly not speciality coffee), then you're doing something wrong. It appears that there's a 25% surcharge on everything to sit in, which is frankly ridiculous. I'm sure sit in customers are more expensive, but we can't be 25% more expensive.

Besides the prices, the service was just appalling. I'm sure there's a reason for their policies, but the way the server acted just made us increasingly uncomfortable.

What we saw:

A guy comes in and sits down. He then tries to order at the bar, and is told off by the server, and that she'll come to his table to take his order. There's no reason for her to act this way, he was just trying to be helpful by standing up to order.

That same guy wanted to plug in his phone and is told that the electricity sockets are not for use by customers. This just seems petty, as it can't be a real expense for the business. I could understand if they want to limit people sitting and working, but just letting him charge his phone while he's eating seemed petty and ridiculous. It also made us feel incredibly uncomfortable.

Another guy who's English was not very good comes in and orders take out. He then sits down while he's waiting. He's yelled at that he's not allowed to sit down and that this costs extra. He clearly didn't understand the server and just wanted to sit while he waited. Instead, he was forced to pay an extra £7 just to be able to sit down.

The final straw for us was when we tried to pay. I wanted to use the toilet, and I have my Laura my credit card to pay for our meal. They charged the card for the meal. AFTER they charged the card, they noticed the card was not her card, and refused to give it back to her.

They also needed to verify signatures, and my card doesn't have my signature on it. This has literally never been a problem, but the server refused to give me back my card until I showed her an ID with my signature on it. Like we were getting ready to call the police because she wasn't giving me my card back. Edit in response: the police have the authority to make me show my ID, Laura's Cafe's server does not have this authority, though she seems to believe she does. Plus, if this was a fraud issue, they would have checked the ID BEFORE charging the card. They were happy to take money from the card first.

I really liked the Scottish breakfast, and it was the best haggis I had while I was in Scotland. But the service is atrocious and unacceptable.

I want Laura-owned businesses to succeed for sentimental reasons. But until this place stops seeing paying customers as the enemy, you should stay away.

If you want an example of how they see customers, just look at their reply to...

We walked into the shop - only ones there. Now I understand why. The young lady at the front was unfriendly and seemed annoyed we were there. They had multiple signs that said “please let us know if you’re dining in” with no explanation as to why. Upon ordering items, my husband was asked questions in a confusing way about taking food away or dining in, which we know is a common practice, but it was not clear on how they operate. It was very cryptic until he finally came to the understanding that they charge extra to dine in. So we ended up taking away. Would have been lovely if that was explained up front, instead of baiting questions. Get home with the food, and I immediately burned the entire inside of my mouth on the coffee. WAY too hot. Beyond this, the food was okay. My husband had a stuffed bun that he said was good. Then, upon reading some of the reviews, I’m under the impression now that this is not normal, and this cafe makes things unnecessarily difficult for patrons. I understand charging for your food and potentially even takeaway cups or wifi. However, when you own a business, you accept the possibility that there will be incurred charges to run the business. Not allowing people to sit for a minute or use the bathroom who are still paying for food...

Update… I never once called this lassie names, I simply said that they should be ashamed of themselves for charging so much and that I was utterly disgusted with the price.

There is a shop along the street, fox and Co. Same sandwich £5.40. Almost £3 cheaper, I’d advise using them instead. Staff are much friendlier too.

I’m not going to say anything bad about the food from here. But I have just been robbed blind for a Sandwhich. £8.10 for a BLT! Disgusting price. I asked for my money back and was told it was too late. Girl behind the counter came up with some rubbish that because it was hot bacon it was more expensive. I didn’t even ask for hot bacon. The girl that owns it, I think, never even had the decency to come and talk to me until I walked out in anger and slammed her door, then she decided to come and say something. I for one will not be back! Terrible customer service! £8.10 for a...