Lilypad Cafe & Water Gardens — Restaurant in England

Service unfortunately let us down for this review to be any higher unfortunately.

We were the first to arrive for breakfast this Monday (around 09.30hrs) and as it was our first visit, were unaware of the procedures, ie did we queue and order first, was it waitress service etc? and when we walked in we were faced with two very solemn, almost 'put out' faces looking back at us that just handed us a menu and told us to sit where we liked. Not even a 'Good morning and welcome to Lilypad cafe' - nada! It almost felt like the two front of house members of staff had had a quarrel.

Anyway, we overlooked this and sat down in the lovely surroundings, pondered over the (somewhat limited) menu and decided on our food and drink. We went up and ordered and the conversation with the staff members continued to be very limited, just like the choice of food. When we asked for plum tomatoes with our breakfast there was no 'unfortunately we only serve fresh cherry tomatoes griddled' or something like that, the older of the two servers simply said ' 'no' to our request. Dont you just love one word answers in CS!!!🙈

The drinks were duly brought to our table, again by the older of the two staff members (am thinking here, the cafe 'manager') who said nothing as she placed down our coffee and tea at our table. I made polite chit chat by asking how she was today and was answered with a 'fine, thank you' - now, call me old fashioned, but i would have expected an enquiry as to how we were in return. Nothing was forthcoming. The lady returned to her position behind the counter making herself look busy, continuuing to have a face on her like she just didnt want to be there! At this point we were still the only ones in the cafe, so you could hardly say they had their work cut out! Food was then brought over and it has to be said was amazing and all was perfectly cooked by the kitchen hands behind the scenes. This, added with the fact that they serve amazing lattes will ensure we will be visiting in the future - i just wish that in this day and age, people who choose to work customer facing in hospitality know the basics of social skills to make everyones visit a memorable one (for the right reasons!) as it is a treat nowadays for alot of us with the cost of living crisis to eat out, so, on the odd occasions we do, we want to enjoy the...

Went as read all good reviews. Firstly it's a lovely looking cafe that's been remodelled to a old world vibe. Service friendly. now food. I was a tad disappointed with steak pie and chips I asked if peas include as some sort of veg and told no they're extra £2.30 and only mushy peas. So got them . Very much like a chip shop pie , it looked nice and yes, meat inside was tender (what bit there was) but it was tasteless with no gravy to speak off, it came with a little pot of again ready made chippy gravy? Was just ok. Hubbies fish and chips (again no peas) so shared mine! Was ok but definitely tastes from chippy. I thought I'd be getting home made on premises pie etc and for price £10+ each meal was not value for money. Again, foods ok and surroundings really nice, maybe my expectations where too high as so many waxing lyrical reviews made me expect more than chippy standard. Won't return as other places do lunches for same money but food is definitely more...

Went in for a working-brunch, we were initially seated at the back before asking if it would be possible for a table with a power outlet for our laptops — we were moved to one in the dining area, which seemed fine at first. We ordered two rounds of coffee (£16) during the hour we were there and planned to order food once my partner finished a call.

It quickly became clear the manager was sending staff over repeatedly to ask if we’d be ordering anything else, clearly hinting that we weren’t welcome to stay unless we kept spending. Eventually, a staff member asked us to move because the table was “needed for diners” and there was a “waiting queue”...there wasn’t. The manager then stood behind the counter eyeballing us as we packed up, which felt extremely uncomfortable.

Definitely not the relaxed café it claims to be — unwelcoming, pushy, and rude. We won’t...