No.3 The Deli — Restaurant in England

My Partner & I have been here many times and always had a good experience. In fact, we went for lunch (25th Jan) for her birthday - unfortunately what transpired has led to me feeling compelled to write a review (I’m not a typical ‘reviewer’).

We ordered some food then sat down but felt uncomfortable as we could see behind the counter a member of staff with clearly a very bad cold, coughing continuously & handling food. Not normally a problem but no gloves, no mask etc.

My Partner politely and quietly said to the waitress at our table about our concern & if we could cancel the food (it may not have been ours we saw but it was the thought of it). We did so quietly because we didn’t want to make a scene - after all we’ve always had very good experiences at this café, the food is always excellent (I’ve no doubt it would have been today) and it’s a lovely venue.

Unfortunately, instead of doing the obvious thing - acknowledging the customer’s concern, providing reassurance, resolving the issue, offering to have food made by someone else…the waitress (who identified herself as the Owner’s Sister) became extremely defensive, abrupt and rude - frankly making my Partner feel embarrassed in front of everyone in the café. “It’s not like she’s got Covid is it” was a particular highlight. After this outburst, this individual was surprised & standoffish when my Partner wanted a refund for our drinks too - given the rudeness experienced.

Clearly this whole situation could have been dealt with so much better and was rather unnecessary. They have a good, well run business here delivering a good service to the community of Corsham. To be clear - I’ve no doubt in the high hygiene standards of this café - it’s top notch - this has just simply been an oversight on this particular day - but to reiterate the key thing here is how we have been treated today.

To the Owner; please take note of this. Customers should not be spoken to is this manner nor made to feel like my Partner has today on her Birthday for simply...

Really unimpressed with how my concerns of undercooked meat were dealt with earlier this week. There is no proper kitchen here. The meat products are partially precooked and then heated a second time on a hot plate or in the microwave at each order..

I was initially willing to overlook my intial obsevrations; the bacon that resembled leather whilst being devoid of any moisture and an old black pudding that had still pink in the middle but had clearly been left out too long.

However, the sausage was red and raw inside. This to me is a problem. When i mentioned it to the waitress I was basically shouted at and told sausages were meant to be like that because they were good quality from the local butcher. I was then completly ignored by all the staff because i dared to question it.

Firstly, however good your sausages, they should not be raw inside. If you had bothered to look, or actually discuss it properly instead of being so dismissive, you would have seen the inside was slimy and uncooked. The colour was just an indicator.

Secondly, customers should not be treated that way if you want to generate a thriving business. Bassed on the reaction i deduce this is not the first occurrence.

Im really desperate for a good breakfast venue in Corsham but this is most definately not it. I am genuinly concerned that a food poisoning outbreak will occur here if they continue to use these cooking techniques..

Eat here...

Despite the cafe being fairly quiet, we were made to wait almost 50 minutes for our food. The food consisted of two sandwiches and a toastie, meaning that the 50 minutes did not seem like a justified wait. When the food finally arrived, the bread the sandwiches came with was stale. The chicken sandwich was ordered on brown bread, however it arrived on white. When we queried this with the server, despite getting the order wrong they only suggested scraping the contents of the previous sandwich onto brown bread which we understandably declined. Additionally, the chicken used in the sandwich seemed to be odd leftover scraps rather than nice chicken slices, which did not seem worthy of the £7.95 price tag. A few months ago I ate here and was subjected to a similar wait, however chose to give it the benefit of the doubt. This seems to...