Market Kitchen — Restaurant in East Cambridgeshire

so i rarely write a bad review i would rather have a conversation at the time and leave it at that however on this occasion when the cost of living is having such a negative affect on how we spend our hard earned money i felt compelled to review we visited this cafe on the sunday during the ely cathedral christmas fair so we was expecting places to be busy upon entering the cafe we were greeted by a charming lady who did explain to us that there would be a 20 to 25 min wait for food which we felt was ok so we duly ordered 3 breakfasts a coke and 2 coffees ..one coffee turned up with the coke the waiter did ask me if i had ordered a drink i explained i had ordered an americano she went to check and returned to say that it hadn’t been put through the til at time ordering but she would bring one to the table and i would need to pay for it before leaving.. not a problem at all so we duly drank our drinks which were fine the wait for the food became increasingly long to which point i was tempted to ask for a refund however it duly came all be it a 50min wait unfortunately the pot of beans on each plate were stone cold they hadn’t been heated up at all so i informed the waitress who did apologise and took them away by the time they had been returned we had eaten most of our meal i have to say the food was nice but by this time i was already a little annoyed i went to pay for the coffee that i had received by this time there were 2 or 3 waitresses behind the counter the previous lady who served us wasn’t one of them i had to join the back of the queue as a lady in the queue thought i’d jumped to the front all i wanted to do was pay for the coffee we had already been too long in this cafe customers were being told of the long wait for food which is fair enough but i kept getting overlooked in the queue to which point i gave up and left without paying for my coffee.. never have done this before. looking at previous poor reviews most are around the long wait for food i had thought it was because of the town being busy but this is not the case i had previously had breakfast with a work colleague in another cafe in a different town a few days earlier the cafe was heaving and not over staffed we received our breakfast within 10 mins so the marketplace cafe needs to do better we payed £30 and we’re not happy also looking at all previous good and bad reviews on this site you don’t reply to them poor practice!!!.. i will pay for my coffee when i return to ely maybe you will have a conversation with me about this review but i guess you will take my money...

Visited Ely for the first time, thought what a lovely town and high street that is full of so many local vendors and most importantly local coffee shops, instead of just the big chains. Lots were unfortunately closed, but I managed to find this cute cafe on the corner. Lovely girls taking orders and bringing out the food. However I'm guessing because it was covid and they weren't re using cutlery for whatever strange reason, but to sit in I was given a wooden knife and fork, a wooden fork to stir my tea and plastic cups for my water. There was so much plastic being used and every customer was given a plastic cup for their drinks, ludicrous in this day, when these could have been substituted for paper cups. Food comes along, i thought great homemade food, im in for a treat, lovely tarlet with sweet potatoe fries and salad that consisted of tomatoes, cucumber and a lot of shredded iceberg lettuce. Slightly dry tarlet, i opted for the feta cheese, cherry tomato and asparagus. Food eaten, so I started doing some work, I arrived at around 12.10, the manager/owner must have come to me around 13.05 and abruptly said "I'm sorry love, are you going to be any longer, I've got a queue outside waiting for the table" to my surprise and to be honest I was really taken back by this very loud and abrupt comment. I then stated, im sorry, there was no sign or communication that stated there was a time limit to sit in. She walked away with my used paper plate and cutlery. There also wasn't a queue outside, and frankly there should be a sign that clearly states that you should eat and go. To also add, their one toilet was absolutely filthy, which I did inform the waiting staff of and they were very nice and apolgised about. This owner/manager is very luckily she has such nice front of house staff. Thank you starbucks for your confidence in using the track and trace app (no such data collection at market kitchen) and hospitality- with no timing...

Maybe I just caught them on a bad day but I have to admit I didn't have a great experience of this place. I had limited time as I had to fit a school shoe shop and lunch for my daughter and myself within a short time. My daughter and I requested different items from the menu, to be told they had run out. No problem - we changed our choices - they'd run out of those too. This was at around midday. In the end my daughter went for a simple sandwich, and I went for a slice of quiche, just on its own, plus drinks and a slice of cake. The quiche was already on the counter, so all they had to do was make the sandwich. The drinks and a not-particularly-generous-sized broken slice of cake arrived after a few minutes. But 25 mins later we were still sitting waiting for our savoury items. The lady at the counter hadn't indicated there'd be a long wait. So after 25 mins, I asked a waitress, who then brought the sandwich and quiche over and wordlessly (and certainly no hint of apology) put them on our table. To be fair, they'd added crisps to my quiche, which was a nice touch (but a small side salad would have been nicer). The food was average - not particularly great but not particularly bad, just very basic. But around £22 for a very basic sandwich, a single smallish slice of quiche, a cup of tea and an orange juice and a broken slice of cake, and 25 mins wait time with no communication - sorry, but I wasn't impressed, and won't be...