NAAFI Restaurant — Restaurant in Dover

Visited Sat 31st Aug. My family enjoy going to English Heritage and have been members for many years. Even during COVID when a lot of our friends and family cancelled their memberships due to not being able to visit the sites we made the conscious decision to continue to pay for the membership strongly believing in supporting the charity and what it's able to preserve. However this visit is unfortunately a sour one, we expected to be able to feed the kids using the kids eat free offer which is a god send at this time of year, but they didn't have any stock. I understand that the offer is subject to availability however on a Saturday afternoon in the summer holidays it's almost unacceptable to not have the stock. We travelled from the midlands, a 5 hour drive, to visit the castle and banked on being able to use the offer, the next best thing, a sausage roll to pacify the kids, out of stock, and iced coffee to help us mourn the cost of finding something else to feed the kids, a 15 minute wait due to their being no ice? It wasn't even busy!! The icing on the cake, the lady serving me, Mandy 👎. This lady is a piece of work and grumbled at me the whole time, don't believe me, ask her colleagues, they were as insulted as me. The one positive, Mandy was generous with the syrup and the ice coffee, once we got them, was...

My experience here was just awful

Very limited selection of food, poor value.drinks rather warm

This location must be horifically mismanaged and unorganised, upon entering I approached a counter to place an order and the nearest person informed me that they "couldnt help me because they didnt know how to use the till".

I had to wait for the customers at another counter to finish ordering to be able to order, this took a significant amount of time.

The staff do a horrific job of cleaning the place and there are used trays everywhere occupying places for people to sit.

Later in the day my friend went to purchase Something and they had to wait in an incredibly slow line. Furthermore his membership discount wasnt honoured.

Im simply of the opinion that even as a captive audience tourist trap a cafe can be expensive or awful but not both, this location is both.

Im genuinly questioning visiting other english heritage sites which are harder to access due to the concern of the only reasonably available food being of such awful value and simply eating a meal in a cafe being as horrificly inconveniecing as this experience.

I intend to email my thoughts to english heritage directly in hopes they address these issues seriously when looking at...

The only restaurant on the Dover Castle grounds (snack bar located nearer the Great Tower). On a weekday in shoulder season (late May) it wasn't crowded at all. Service was simple but adequate. Cash & credit card (and probably e-wallet) payments accepted.

Menus differ slightly from day to day (especially soups) but generally you have two meat main dish options and a vegetarian main dish option, plus soups. There are also pre-made salads in the Quick Bites area of the restaurant (to your left as you enter). Kids can assemble their own 5-piece lunch set for a very reasonable price. Hot as well as cold drinks.

Food is perhaps a bit bland but very serviceable. Service sizes are generous. A good amount of seating for a non-busy day, but I'm sure this place gets packed on weekends and during the high tourist season. Prices are about what you'd expect when there's no competition, but I didn't feel like they were...