The Bridge Tea Rooms — Restaurant in England

Very Expensive with a Side of Abusive Owner

We went to the tea rooms for my wife’s birthday and high hopes. We had heard about their award winning status and thought let’s give it a try being local.

The food was very nice. Sadly that’s where it ended. We can only assume that the awards won are for best abusive owner and rip off business practices

The tea room is in a lovely old cotswold building and the feel of old England has been kept with 2023 poor practice

We were greeted by two lovely young staff with smiles and a third staff member who would crack her face if she attempted to smile. We sat at our table and checked the menu to find 10% service charge on any bill over £10. Every piece of food on the menu is over £10. So it’s a 10% service charge for all then.

We ordered our food (Welsh rarebit), so £15 for cheese on toast. Then add onto that your £5 cup of coffee.

The food came and as we said it was very nice. Well surely it’s hard to screw up cheese on toast but the business practices here it wouldn’t surprise me if you got a slice of Aldi 20p steamed bread and value cheese. Atleast the bread and cheese was a good quality even if it was 1 large slice of bread. For £15 you would have atleast expected 2. So overall £60 for 2 slices of cheese on toast, a cup of coffee, pot of tea and 2 slices of cake.

But now onto the main event. Sat enjoying our food and just the quiet time with no kids to chat over my wife’s birthday and we become aware of a lady stood in the middle with a large wet dog (it was raining outside)

Not a practice I am a fan of (letting dogs in restaurants) but sadly one that is becoming more the norm. The table behind us though has the dog practically on their table looking at their food.

The gentleman politely asked the dog owner to move it away to which they very harshly scolded they would stand with their dog where they wanted and would not move. The lady sat at the table trying to enjoy her food asked again politely and explained they were not dog owners and did not wish to have a strangers wet dog under their table. The dog owner again fires back they will not move until they go upstairs and continued to stand there. We really did feel for the people trying to enjoy their food and having this rude dog owner giving them abuse

But that was not the end of it, the dog owner started going upstairs but then decides to have a 3rd bite at these poor People. They turned and fire “Me and my dog will stand wherever we want, we welcome dogs here and I am the owner”, before turning and walking away

So, if you want nice but very expensive food with an automatic 10% service charge, and an owner who enjoys abusing their customers thinking they are an air and grace above everyone else. You found the...

My friends were visiting and wanted to go here as they had tried to visit before when it had been too full. My friend booked a table, and we went in the afternoon. I lived in Bradford for several years and have never visited this place. The waitresses were absolutely lovely, so friendly and gave wonderful service. Unfortunately I cannot say the same for the woman who I assume was the manager or some kind of senior member of staff. I can see from the other reviews on here that I am not the first person to point this out! She seemed to have very little interest in customer service, and having worked in customer service for several years, I have to say I found this quite irritating. It was baffling to overhear her talking loudly to other customers who were just about to sit down, telling them how she couldn't believe the waitresses hadn't cleared the table yet. "They just walk right by the table and don't even bother to clean it up!" grabbing all the plates and sighing as if it wasn't her job to be doing this lowly task. Not a great attitude. The other customers stood awkwardly while she muttered about how terrible her own staff were before stalking off back downstairs before a waitress returned and continued to be lovely, polite and hardworking at a very busy time. I never bother writing reviews, but I thought that as the staff clearly aren't getting the praise they deserve at work, someone somewhere should let them know they're doing a great job, and perhaps it is the older lady who should re-consider how best to welcome customers. I'm sure a simple "oh i'm so sorry, let me get all this out the way for you" would have sufficed. Any kind of warmth at all would have been appreciated! Grumpy lady aside, the food was lovely, and so was the coffee. I would recommend visiting if you're looking for something cute and quaint, and if you prepare yourself for a frosty welcome from the aforementioned woman you might be able to avoid the surprise and annoyance that I...

On the 29 Dec 2023 about 16:00, I visited this tearoom with my family and close friend, 5 of us to experience "real British tea". We were three nationalities around our two tables. The atmosphere of the place was lovely, and the tea and cake tasted scrumptious, just as my British wife had described, however, we left quite disappointed with the service. After I ordered the Bridge Cream Tea set with English Breakfast tea, plus a slice of cake. Thus teas ordered at our table were chamomile, Earl Grey, and Lapsang Souchong, plus two English Breakfasts. I was left waiting for my tea pot to arrive while the other 4 of our party got theirs. It was very hard to get the attention from any of the 3 waitresses; we were quite dismayed at how inattentive they were. When we finally managed to catch the attention of the older lady waitress and explained about the lack of one tea pot she barked, with a frown, that the other teapot with English Breakfast tea had double the quantity of tea in it, and that additional hot water should be added to the other teapot of English Breakfast tea. Much to our disappointment the hot water never arrived. During the course of our tea I had to stretch across the table to get tea from the other teapots. Since I did not want to ruin our experience I did not comment or complain. However, this one-time experience has left me and my wife with a very disappointing memory of our time at the Bridge Tea Rooms. Where I come from, Japan, in my experience even the staff at fast food restaurants such as McDonald's don't express that bad of an attitude when it comes to customer service, no matter how busy they are. Having said all this, the waiter was the friendliest among the staff and made us feel welcome when we arrived. In hindsight I should have ordered a different tea to everyone else, then I would have got my...