Cactus Cafe & Kitchen — Restaurant in England

When we visited here on a Saturday afternoon there was a young family crowd in, which gave the place a buzz, but also gave the place an atmosphere of screaming toddlers. During the week, it may be a little quieter, but it is close to a school and opposite a beauty salon, so there's no guarantee.

For a modern commercial unit, the owners have given the decor some thought and gone with a 1970s retro vibe, with the sort of wooden chairs they ised to have in schools, multicolour lines around the plain walls, etc. This lifts the place out of being a dull, bland modern unit.

Unfortunately, on our visit, the cleaning fairies must have had the day off. Every vacant table was piled with plates, cups, and detritus left by the previous occupants. And where we sat, the floor was covered in crumbsas though it hadn't seen a brush since Christmas 1978 (and the corner where the high chairs were stacked was thick with dust). The metal undercarriage of the table where we sat - on the soft sofa behind the coffee bar - was also unclean. And the lampshade on the lamp on the corner of the serving counter was thick with dust. So, cleanliness in the public areas is less than satisfactory in my view.

It took about ten minutes for someone to take our coffee order, which gave us enough time to study the menus and get over the shock of the prices being charged. Bu the time the waitress came to take our coffee order (two americanos at £3.00 each), I had managed to pick my chin up off the floor and reinstate my composure, just about. We decided not to eat here: partly because of the initial impressions the place gave us, and mostly because we couldn't justify the prices on the menu.

Twenty minutes later our coffees arrived, which was five minutes before the bowl of sugar. This gave us time to observe the staff, who wondered around fairly aimlessly and robotically completing one task at a time (e.g., take a plate of food to a table and return to the counter without picking up any of the pile of dirties at the neighbouring table, or go to a dirty table and pick up one plate and leave the rest for another trip). All service with a vacant expression, all tables wiped down with a grubby grey dish cloth.

The coffee was not pleasant. It tasted bitter, overcooked and left a foul taste in the mouth that I had to get a pack of mints to relieve.

Overall, needlesstosay, it was not a good experience. It may suit a certain family crowd who have convinced themselves that paying through the nose for poor service is what millennial families should do; but it's not an experience I will...

Long waiting time: only ordered a latte and bacon sandwich, but I was waiting for 40 min. I wasn't asked what size latte I wanted (they do two: small and slightly bigger and the come in cappuccino cups rather than late mugs / glasses for some weird reason) and I wasn't given a spoon or sugar with the coffee either of the two times I ordered one.

The bacon sandwich was actually a bacon bun. The bacon had all the greasy rind left on it, so I had to remove it myself. By the time I had pulled all this far off the bacon, wasn't left with much to fill the bun. The bun was white, cheap bread, which I happen to like, but the option of brown or just plain sliced bread would have been nice and wouldn't have added anything to their overheads or the time taken to prep the thing.

The service was a mess with staff not appearing to work together. When I arrived he place was full, and there were at least 4 staff. I'd estimate that maybe 50 people were in the place, but: 15 of those were children and they weren't ordering; of the remaining 35, at least 20 left within 15 min of me arriving so they weren't ordering either; of the remaining 15, excluding myself and my wife, there were 7 groups, and all but 4 of those groups were already seated when I came in... Leaving only 4 groups of people potentially ordering when I arrived. I didn't order anything for 10 min because no one was around to take my order and only 2 people were paying to leave, so my question would be: why did there's staff take 50 min to take an order and make a bacon sandwich, one cup of coffee and cup of tea to fill my order?

I also noticed, while sitting nodded and listening to children screaming, that the counter is lit by 50 (!) 40Watt carbon filament bulbs (not LED)! That is 2000W of electricity to illuminate the counter when they could use LEDs and cut their usage to a tenth of that. It's not relevant to their service (which was terrible anyway) but I found it annoying and I was bored awaiting so I worked it out... Maybe it wouldn't cost £15 for 2 coffees a tea and bacon and egg sandwich if they didn't waste so much electricity and trained their staff to serve more efficiently?

I suspect it's a nice place in summer of you want a coffee and it's quiet, but when I visited it was Hell on Earth and my food was...

Not one for posting a review never mind a bad one however I feel as though it’s warrant as I’m really sad to see a cafe I used to love, go down hill this badly. I can only assume Cactus Cafe is under new ownership since formerly being Tea with Alice. I used to rave about Tea with Alice and recommend it to all my friends but in recent times (maybe the last year or two) I have been disappointed with the service and on one occasion the actual food :(. On one visit I ordered the hash, having not eaten that day to save myself I was more than ready for some tasty food, I ordered the hash and waited half an hour. After these 30 minutes had passed the lady came over to tell me that they actually didn’t have enough of the chicken to make my order. Despite being disappointed I did not express this as I’m not one to make a fuss and opted for the beef hash instead. I was shocked by the service as the lady wasn’t very apologetic and I’m unsure why it took half an hour for them to even realise there wasn’t enough chicken, it’s worth mentioning that on the last 3 visits which I’ve been disappointed with, the cafe has not been very busy as I could have understood that being a factor for slower service. When the food arrived it was very disappointing, tasteless and school dinner like food. Apologise for being harsh but it really was not up to scratch. On my most recent visit and unfortunately what will be my last visit to this cafe, I ordered 2 mushroom on toast dishes, once again the cafe was not busy presumably because it was a sunny day but the service was once again ridiculously slow. It took 35 minutes for what was (in my option) a simple order. No one came to check after to see if our food was ok or if we wanted any more drinks, it almost felt as if our custom was a burdon, this feeling intensified as it got closer to closing time with people sweeping and mopping around us. We came in at around 2pm and would’ve left much earlier had the service been quicker. I love to support small businesses however I will no longer be recommending this place to people and won’t be returning to the cafe. It’s such a shame, please try and be more friendly and attentive...