The Clock Tower, Sidmouth — Restaurant in East Devon

Visiting as a family celebrating an engagement on the last Sunday in October, a gloriously sunny day, quite unexpected at this time of year, we were looking forward to sitting in the gardens of the Clock Tower cafe.  We were met on the way by various people telling us not to bother going as the cafe was closed.  Disappointed, we marched on nevertheless, to see for ourselves.  Confused, we saw notes on the door advising that the kitchen was closed however the cafe was open so I went inside and politely suggested to the staff that the wording be changed as it was unclear and they were losing business as a result.  My comments were met by a member of staff who was defensive to the point of being rude, spoke over me and did not listen to what I was saying.  Of course she could have been having a bad day, but even so it was not how I expected to be treated as a customer.  She had a very unfortunate and argumentative manner shall we say; this then continued when she saw us moving a table outside to enable our group to sit together in the sun.  She was extremely patronising and condescending, again, speaking over us as though we were imbeciles, not 9 intelligent people simply wishing to sit together to enjoy a cup of coffee or pot of tea!  Comments such as "we do not expect to find customers moving our tables, we expect to come out to find tables where we left them my lovelies". Customers at other tables were laughing and saying "golly, you are going to be in trouble in a minute" and could not quite believe the attitude of this staff member, perhaps the manager could organise some training for her in customer liaison skills. The point is, sometimes customers do need to be asked to modify their behaviour, but it can be done via a polite request delivered with a smile, and not a shouty monologue dripping in sarcasm and rudeness and ending with the passive aggressive "My Lovelies" as if that makes it all ok.  Reading back some of the previous reviews it is clear that whilst the cafe seems to provide a reasonable standard of food and drink, customer service and a good attitude is sadly lacking.  Unfortunately I cannot recommend this cafe for their customer service which is a shame given the...

Very disappointed We are locals to this place and for the last couple of years it has been our favourite in Sidmouth. It has obviously changed owners! Went there for lunch today, it has had a mini makeover and no attention to detail in the painting, so not really the classy look I think they are going for. The prices have increased and the quality and selection of food has decreased. The 20-30 min queues are the same. We had a cappuccino and mocha with a piece of cake and ordered the pea and ham soup each. My Mocha was luke warm and the the cake was not homemade. Some looked homemade but what my husband chose definitely wasn't When the soup arrived it had no butter to go with the roll and the soup was not hot. At this point I asked for some butter and told the staff the soup was not hot. It was removed together with my spoon. When it arrived back I had to ask for another spoon and again for butter. The soup was mediocre to say the least, not made with ham stock and the few bits of ham sliced not real ham was fatty and I found what looked like plastic in mine. It had a bit of parsley on it as a garnish and being as they then heated it in a microwave for me it then tasted of parsley rather than pea. This used to be a lovely cafe with good food and atmosphere at reasonable prices. It now professes to be a restaurant, if you cant keep the locals happy and just rely on summer trade to pay the extra for the fancy titled food of questionable quality, then I cant see you lasting long here. You will need the locals during the winter. But you can no...

Good Coffee and cake. Dogs allowed in the beautiful outdoor seating. Friendly staff. Clean toilets. Confusing queueing mechanism.

We ordered a second round of cold coffee.I consider £ 10,- very expensive for 2 premade coffee in a package. Especially when one came out of non cold storage. Otherwise it would be 4 🌟. Their fresh made coffee is cheaper. Update changed to 4 star. Still think better information to customers would be nice

Edits: made clear that the 10 GBP was for 2 coffee after a mail by the owner.

To clarify our point, 5 GBP for one simple cold coffee is expensive. I initially thought it was something different. It is a brand that is maybe only sold in the UK . I have not seen it in France, Belgium, Germany or the Netherlands. I expect that price level, for a good flat white because that takes extra work. The guy after the counter should not have tried selling me an uncooled package d drink or at least have asked. This review is not harsh but factual.

5 star for good location, cakes and home made iced coffee. However..

-1 for overpriced packaged coffee

-1 for selling 1 uncooled packaged coffee

-1 for the banquette, that excellent stilton cheese really deserves better bread

2...