Riverside Cafe — Restaurant in England

I rarely take the time to write reviews but I feel so angry about the situation Riverside Cafe put us in that I had to take the time to write this.

We had an enjoyable meal here. When it came to pay for the bill it became clear they were having problems with their card machine. We tried contactless on my phone and chip and pin on a card for a completely separate account - neither worked due to a “communication error” (according to the card machine). The table next to us also tried another three cards to pay for their bill - which also all failed. Given that the problem was clearly with their card machine (which they accepted) they were then completely inflexible when trying to come up with alternative ways to pay. The table next to us offered to pay via bank transfer - “not allowed”. We asked to leave our details whilst we went to get cash - “not allowed”. We had two young children with us (both under 5) so splitting up wasn’t going to work. The children were already starting to get restless and due to needing to drive to the nearest cash point (there are none nearby) we needed one of us to stay in the car (with the children) and one to get out to get cash. We ended up having to leave my wife’s phone as a deposit whilst we drove to get cash. We then had to pay £1.80 to withdraw cash at the nearest cash point. Then drive back to retrieve the phone and pay the bill. All because the Riverside cafe seem happy to use an unreliable card machine. They were barely even apologetic!

The least they could do is forewarn customers about their card machine before ordering. Why not see if they can agree with a neighbouring business to use theirs when they have issues? Just do something other than leave customers in this kind of situation. It completely ruined the experience. We won’t be returning. Appalling way to...

Disappointing

Went in here with family for a nice sunday lunch. It wasn't a particularly big establishment nor that busy. The 3 servers on duty were stood chatting for the majority of the time we were in there which is fine if customers are not waiting. However, it took 5 mins for us to be given menus after we sat down and another 15 to have our order taken. Milkshakes were nice - probably the only good thing about our experience here. When our food finally came out it was unacceptable for the steep prices they charge - 2 roast dinners with about 2 roast potatoes each and the meat was clearly the frozen package kind that they warm up in the microwave. When you pay £12 each you expect at least average priced meat - not £1 chicken and beef that you would hesitate to food to your dog! I had the full English, I asked for the eggs well done - that does not mean burnt, they were inedible. I had to ask for my bread twice before they finally bought it over with no butter! At this point we had had enough and left it at that. Suffice to say I almost always tip and never leave bad reviews - I understand things go wrong. However, this experience was expensive and terrible - do not waste your time...

Was very disappointed with our breakfast at Riverside. We had ordered two breakfast’s, when the food had finally arrived the beans was dry, eggs completely over cooked & dry and one of the hash browns was burnt which they tried to hide under some food. We had notified our waitress about our food who didn’t apologise and simply walked off with our plates. We was then left there for 20 minutes trying to catch the attention of a waitress to get our bill, there was only 2 other tables there at the time so felt like we was getting ignored cause we had complained. Had to eventually walked to the bag to ask for the bill where was they was making themselves coffee. Very disappointing...