Ashridge Monument Café — Restaurant in Dacorum

A disappointing mixi-me-toasties ruined my afternoon. Having looked forward to visiting the cafe which is in a lovely place, was not such a pleasurable experience. Yes it was on a rather busy weekend and having queued for 25mins and just past 1pm to be told no sandwiches left. The option offered was 3 varieties of toasties. So ordered a cheese & ham and chicken & ham. This is where it all went pear shaped. After quite a wait the order buzzer went off so went to the hatch to collect. There were 2x boxes with no number or markings with no one there to ask as we're too busy serving all other customers around me. After a wait, I managed to catch someone's attention to if this was out order, and was not sure. Being convinced it was the order took order over to table. Having no markings to which is which, thought easy to identify each but was not the case. They did look nice toasties, but could not identify which was the chicken & ham as both looked so similar order had we picked up someone's order. The problem being I could not eat the cheese as most likely was cheddar which I'm intolerant to. Thinking we worked out which is which started to eat as was hungry after the wait. Part way through thought no we go the wrong one each so swapped. Go to the second half then thought again no as the other had chicken, not much or ham to tell truth and the price paid was a lot and was not even on the price menu which should have been kept to to date with food available. Dissatisfied with what I eaten and now having realised I must have eaten some of the cheese & ham one, but also believe the chicken & ham one must have had cheese in which I was not told about at all as thought ok to order. Having stopped eating my toastie as concerned had chedder cheese in and started to get the bad feeling of a migraine setting in which was frustrating due to so many mix ups, poor service at order and delivery, and not knowing what is was eating, ruined my afternoon as feeling unwell after paying good money for it 😒 Please read this as a bit of a complaint as could have done a...

If I could leave a minus star review - I would. Ashridge Monument & surrounding woodlands are absolutely beautiful. This café, is absolutely pants. Prior to being taken over by the National Trust it was a lovely place, delivering excellent quality. Now it is really, really bad. A friend & I ordered a hot chocolate each the other day... they took ages to arrive & when they did, they were so bad they were undrinkable, which is NOT ok for almost £10. They tasted like burnt milk that had only been shown the chocolate that should have been added. One of them continued to develop a gloopy skin across the top which didn't make it anymore appetising. Did we complain? No. Why? Because the queue here is always ridiculous & the staff are moving at a glacial pace, by the time you've either disgruntled other customers by trying to get to the front to complain or waited in the slowest line ever, the communication with staff is poor, so you are left thinking, what's the point. It is such a shame because unless you choose to walk to Ashridge House to go to the Café there you really are stuck with this being the only option.

Save your money, stop at the Bridgewater Arms pub on your way home & have a nice drink there, or head to the Café down...

I have to say I am a big fan of Ashridge and love the walk, however it's about time national trust looks at the food and drinks offering or shake up the internal team up a bit...

They kicked the old catering company out, and replace it with an in house team, the team are lovely and friendly however the food is poor and over priced - I don't mind paying more for a good quality, exciting options, but not a basic ham and cheese sandwich that I can buy in Tesco for quarter of the price.

They had the opportunity to improve vs the old catering company but if anything you made it more boring.

Also you know you can't predict the weather in the UK, therefore put cover over some of the benches at least people can enjoy the food and drinks without getting wet.

It's not a rocket science... It's...