The Chakra Lounge — Restaurant in Derbyshire Dales

After seeing advertising for Chakra Lounge in Matlock Bath, I researched their social media and decided that it was the perfect place to take my family. Our nearest spot, in Bakewell, is an hours drive away. We parked for two hours believing this would be enough time to grab some lunch and have a quick gander around before leaving for home. Most family lunches take us no more than 45 minutes as we have a 3 and 5 year old and so we don’t like to hang about!

On entering, we were met by friendly staff, enjoyed the various books and games on offer and found a lovely table in a tastefully decorated room. The menu looked great and we promptly ordered.

It felt a long wait (around 30 minutes) for 2 of the 3 mains to arrive. At no point during ordering, whilst waiting or receiving the first dishes were were told there were any issues with the meals.

The two meals were well presented and tasty but heavily sprinkled with chilli flakes (not mentioned on the menu) which meant I had to scrape the children’s food and left me with an upset tummy for a few hours.

As I was nearing the end of my meal, I grew concerned that my husband had still not received his and the experience was starting to feel less enjoyable. He went to check that they hadn’t forgotten his meal. He returned and said he was told there was a problem with the rice and it was on its way.

Meanwhile, I could see two families in the same area waiting a long time for their orders but then insult was added to injury when they started to receive meals with rice on before my husband had received his. At least 15 minutes after his encounter with the staff I decided to enquire on whether his meal was actually going to arrive.

I told the lady at the counter that my husband’s meal had still not arrived. Her response was abrupt, telling me- almost exasperated- that she had told him it would be 20 minutes because of a problem with the rice. (When I later asked my husband, he hadn’t even spoken to the same lady as I did so she either lied or got us mixed up with a different family). Well her response was like a red flag to a bull. No initial apology(a feeble ‘sorry’ did come later), no awareness of the experience, no attempt to make things right except to say ‘Well, what do you want?’. I explained that I had finished my meal a long time ago (we had actually ordered the food an hour before and I was concerned we were going to go over our parking ticket). Her blasé reaction triggered me to behave in a way I normally wouldn’t as I responded with equal bluntness. Suddenly, someone who I can only imagine to be the owner or manager (who was actually lovely) promptly arrived and offered to refund my husband’s meal. I explained that it had ruined the whole occasion. He didn’t hesitate to refund the whole meal but actually this left me with a bad feeling for the rest of the day. I didn’t want a free meal, I wanted them to understand that it wasn’t an acceptable service, genuinely apologise and communicate with us. It wasn’t really the outcome I wanted but I was too annoyed to continue the conversation.

Unfortunately, you can see from the other poor reviews that this service is not a ‘one-off’.

What I would like to see Chakra Lounge do to improve is that when they make mistakes or things go wrong(because things happen, don’t they?) then own them and try to rectify them AS THEY HAPPEN not just leave the customer to work it out for themselves. Why didn’t anyone come to tell us there was a delay? My husband could have chosen a different meal or we could have gone somewhere else. Why did it take an hour to make his rice? (When we ordered, it was busy but not full capacity). Why were we met with rudeness when they’d had an opportunity to put things right? A quick explanation earlier in the meal would have completely diffused the situation and it would have been a totally different experience.

Our 3 stars reflects the tasty food as it different to anything we’d had before and the atmosphere (despite this direct encounter). We hope to visit again and have a more...

I wanted to love this little place but unfortunately it was just not a great experience overall.

We went in for a coffee in the afternoon and were told the kitchen and upstairs was shut, the staff were very apologetic but it was still a little disappointing when we had only just arrived. We found a seat and the vibe is, interesting. I thought it was going to be cosy but instead it was cold both in atmosphere and temperature. The decor is a bit all over the place with both a hippie look but also neon signs that are super bright and quite a sensory overload.

We ordered 3 coffees and 2 cakes, the chai was pretty small and not very flavourful. I also ordered a lemon and blueberry cake, the cake was quite tasty but the sheer amount of icing on it was way too overpowering and ended up being super sickly sweet, I ended up pulling most of the icing off and leaving it which was a shame as with a better cake to icing ratio the treat would have been gorgeous. My mum ordered a flapjack which again was absolutely swimming in icing making it way too sickly, and she also ended up taking all the icing off as it was just too much and we both have a sweet tooth.

Overall the service was lovely, but the cakes and coffees were disappointing and the atmosphere was lacking. I wouldn't visit...

Nice little cafe we enjoy the one in buxton so decided to come here walked in friendly staff greeted us we sat down decided what we wanted went to order.....sold out.. went back picked somthing else went to order.... sold out got told that its been really busy all day.... there was 3 couples including us when we was here...but fine i ordered somthing else so we waited at our table and after 15min they came with our diet cokes ( just 2 cans and glasses why it took 15min i dont know) then another 25 min and mine came....just mine and said my wifes would be another 5 to 10 min. It just blew my mind i came here to eat with my wife but got our meals at seperate times i just dont understand why only bring 1 meal out to a couple surley you sort it so it arrives out together out of all the places ive eaten out that has never happened it was just silly so i had to pick around my food as it went cold as my wife had to wait for hers to arrive just not fair so another 5 min and my wifes came out the food was great but a 45 min food wait with 3 couples in the cafe ( the others already had food ) just seemed a bit long for a toasty and a curry. Atmosphere was nice and relaxing and prices arnt bad it really was the bringing the food out completly seperate that spoilt...