Beach Café Porthtowan — Restaurant in England

Popped in for Breakfast with my disabled Son just around Xmas time. I like a big breakfast and I decided I'd like some chips with mine so I tried to order some at the Till with the breakfasts with tea for my Son and I. The server looked alarmed and told me that Chips were not available until the afternoon menu. I noted we were about an hour early for that. Picking up on the vibe I said OK though I was shown extras for the breakfast menu so I ordered two extra ( one each ) Hash browns at 3.20. and sat down. Food was served and the breakfast was quite small and the extra hash browns didn't really make much difference to my hunger. The Chef who is also the owner came out and I asked him if there was a particular reason why I couldn't have chips with my breakfast. He bristled and said it wasn't a truckers cafe to which I replied "don't you like to keep your customers happy. "?Having just started work myself in a kitchen somewhere else I had noted that our staff tried to please the customers and get them what they wanted. The Owner then replied it was logistics that meant I couldn't have the chips. I said, don't hash browns and chips get cooked in the same frier? He got more brusque with me and I added him if he usually talked to customers like that. He says that's why he's the chef and has staff. Then he went on to accuse me of being rude from the moment I came in. I certainly wasn't though by this time his tone was grating on me . My son was quiet. Next he ordered the server to give him our money back and tried to take the plates off me and my son and asked us to leave. At that moment I felt alarmed as he reached toward us to get put half eaten plates. I said that if he did that there would probably be an incident that we would need the police for and that everyone was watching. Maybe I was over protective of my son and I saying this though by this point I did not care. We finished our breakfast after he told us that we were barred from the cafe. I'm quite OK with that to be honest. Talking to other folks afterward I was told that he has been observed being mean to the staff. I fir one am glad I won't be returning and really for the cost of the breakfast it is tiny compared to say Morrisons or any other cafe. Tea in plastic cups just reminds me of my Nan giving us tea as children so we couldn't break the cups. With tea and extra hash browns it was...

Unbelievable rude and unable to offer a vegetarian alternative to the one kids option on the menu. Avoid!

In response to your response:

A one star review is fair for a cafe that only offers a meat based kids option and would not allow any changes to the the menu items as written - I was told that I could order something exactly as written on the menu and that was after being kept waiting for several minutes (incidentally not the first time this has happened - the previous visit we were left standing at the counter for 10 minutes only for someone to finally come over but to tell us that the kitchen was closed for half an hour whilst they swapped menus - why not say straight away or leave a sign on the counter?!).

Yes, what I initially asked for was a basic cheese sandwich as that is what I had been asked to get. When I was told that this wasn't available (and I do understand that it is not always possible to ad hoc things due to what is stocked and I'm certainly not marking you down for this) I asked if there was any vegetarian alternative to the kids cheeseburger. I was told a lentil burger but then it became apparent that was the full adult size burger with all the trimmings. What you could have offered was the lentil burger with just cheese or the halloumi burger without the mushrooms or any trimmings. I would have paid full price for either and probably ordered some other food and drinks and been perfectly happy. But "You can only order exactly what is written on the menu" was repeatedly barked at me - so I choose to leave.

This was my 4th visit to your cafe - the first two...

Spent nearly £40 here this morning on a couple of overpriced sandwiches, two coffees and two ‘babycinos’ for the kids which you might hope for £1.50 per babycino would be a normal size cup of warm milk. The drinks turn up first and the babycinos are in literal egg-cup-size paper cups, miniature to the point that they are barely even worth carrying across the beach to the kids, so tiny that most cafes wouldn’t even charge for them. I point out politely that these drinks are ridiculously sized even for small kids, and priced at £1.50 each could they please put them in cups the same size my flat white came in (still pretty small). Two baristas then come and talk to me about it, followed by an internal discussion with the stroppy manager in the kitchen who decides that I need to pay £1 more to turn these two tiny thimbles of froth into actual cups of warm milk. I mean really?? Based on this mean and unnecessary stinginess alone I’ll never return to this place again. Food was average and overpriced, staff...