Delamere Forest Cafe — Restaurant in England

Won’t be rushing back.

This is obviously only my opinion;

Initial impressions are great - massive facility, great toilets and outside seating.

Cafe is expensive for what it is. Plenty of seating although feels slightly like a canteen. Food items are apparently all ‘locally sourced’ but no more info on that and looks like brought in commercially as you’d expect from a cafe this size anyway. Although there was a barista, coffee tastes mediocre & couldn’t see any details on coffee used. Carrot cake was dry. Scones good. We pulled out the red onion from our pre-made sandwiches which were otherwise good - fresh. Slow to queue and pay as only one staff member serving and one on coffees…not enough for a queue at least 8 deep all waiting for coffees to be made and cakes served before sitting down.

Takeaway food items located beyond till so not a very good flow through cafe.

For such a large establishment, I would expect more of an Eden project food experience with details of where things are sourced from and better visibility of menu (only on tables from what I saw), staff struggled with the menu too and had to refer to it rather than know what’s on it as such. Not much to just grab, pay and go. Service was generally lacking with no ‘sorry for the wait’, smile or ‘how are you today?’ Etc, very straight faced…almost through gritted teeth as they were obviously understaffed (realise this may not have been planned) so I did feel for them and gave them a smile to ease them!

Seemed very separate from the forest experience as a whole - didn’t go into information area as it was a different entrance. FE missing a trick there in terms of educating visitors etc. Even if they lease the cafe out.

Although we were low season at the end of sept, many bits closed which detracted from the feel of the place. Bar ‘out of order’ indoors and outside ice cream cart closed off - could all be removed or covered with more interesting / useful information.

Walk - felt like a highway through the forest. Although very accessible as such (flat), I would have liked to have taken my recently and temporarily disabled mother (waiting for hip op). I had hoped a place of this size and popularity would have had trampers or e-trikes for hire but nothing like that available. I’ll leave a separate review for that not under cafe but hopefully worth noting.

Did the job but could be so much more in terms of adding to visitor experience for the destination and from my point of interest educate on so many important elements about forestry (and food!) as a whole but this was...

Loved it! 3 walking routes available, we started on the shortest, got mixed up and then ended up on the longest. One is 1.9 miles another 2.1 and the finally 3.9miles as a loop. It is colour coded to prevent this happening but we were a bit thick and went from green to red but it made a lovely walk as we weren't in a rush. Very pleasant walking trails around the lake with so many tiny frogs bouncing around on the paths so do watch your footing walking about. They are about the size of a 5p so some good eye sight is needed or else you will be taking dead frogs home in the treds of your boots. Nice green areas, great for a casual walk or biking, and as you can see from the pictures, good views and large walking areas. Cafe on site, reasonable pricing and tastes amazing. Free toilets and certainly wheelchair friendly. Great for dog walkers as the area is so large you really can spend the day here and venture as far as you wish around the area. Parking was good, there's 3 or 4 car parks available so if you are meeting with some one make sure you know where before hand.

• like we didn't make that mistake....yes another one* One of the parking sites we visited was huge and not bad pricing to be honest and to help I have attached attached picture for thee to see....

I’ve been visiting Delamere for years and have watched it evolve to great heights. The new cafe has always offered great service and a lovely relaxing atmosphere, until today that is! I had a terrible experience with a member of staff over a cup of ice! This woman who I understand is the manager was screaming at staff and customers whilst I was in the queue. After I had ordered my drinks, my daughter decided she’d prefer her coffee iced. So, I returned to the counter and politely asked for a large cup of ice so that I could covert the hot coffee to an iced coffee. This lady restricted me to three cubes of ice, saying I couldn’t have any more! I explained that wasn’t enough to make the coffee iced, and she slammed a cup on the bar with just a few more cubes. She was so rude and her manner was so aggressive that I was very shocked. In fact , I was so taken back that I asked her what her name was? She ignored me, so I asked again and again. She turned to me and screamed GO AWAY!!! Honestly, I have never experienced such poor service and rudeness over a few ice cubes. This lady (with red hair) was just awful. I wanted to make a formal complaint. Her poor staff were...