The Garrison Bakery — Restaurant in England

Might be the Garrison but no ones guarding the output in terms of service, quality and price. Happened to be in the area and always try to support local independent shops so thought I'd get a nice fresh loaf of good bread and possibly some cakes for tea.

Thought wasn't turned into deed....

I waited for quite a while with others outside in the cold even though only 2 customers in front , one in the shop who appeared to be waiting for ages for goods to be made up in the back, the other in the doorway. Whilst not expecting an army of smart uniform clad servers, with the one young guy in the shop wandering back and forth it took ages.

Anyway I was in and a looked at the goods on offer. The cakes were mainly of an older style nature reminding me of bakers years ago - but not in a good way. They looked a mess and unlikely to be those found in an officer's one. Even the non tray bake options looked stodgy and greasy so decided to take leave on these.....

However still keen to get a great locally baked loaf for lunch , looked at the quite understandably limited bread options as it was around midday. The only 'non tin' loaf was a sourdough one which looked fine so I opted for that.

I was 'privately' floored when on paying being told it was £3.95.... turning out to be one of the most expensive loaves outside of an artisan bakers in trendy central London !! Had it been beautiful and a delight to eat I would have chalked it up as good but a bit dear experience in not asking the price first.

Unfortunately it wasn't. The open texture was very open with large air gaps throughout and really didn't have any of the freshness or taste I'd expected (and think paid for). In short I felt it was a stripe up and the company...

Fabulous local run bakery serving amazing take-away sandwiches and a HUGE selection of great cakes.

We visit the Garrison Bakery every other week we are around Thorpe Bay and usually buy a sandwich made with their Granary Bread and then a couple of cakes. My husband’s favourite is their Egg Mayo sandwich which is tasty and generous in size – all freshly made to order. Their sausage rolls are good too. All the cakes sampled so far have been great – our favs are banana loaf, double chocolate brownie, apple turnover, Chelsea and bath buns (they are huge but very light), red velvet cookies (please make these again only seen them on the last visit). Last visit they had a new chocolate and pear vegan brownie which looked great and hope to try next time.

The cafe has a few tables/chairs inside, and another couple of tables/chairs outside.

It is always busy around lunchtime and the staff are always working really hard to keep up with customer demand, and always...

Went in on the 31st of March to buy some lunch the women on the till wasn't very nice at all. I asked for a cheese and ham roll and asked if I could pay with card she said it has to be 5 pounds minimum spend which I'm pretty sure is illegal now but whatever. I looked around for more items to make up to five pound as I was hungry and didn't want to eat a sandwich from a shop. The lady who made my roll was quite nice she said thanks unlike the women on the till. One of the items was some fudge from the fudge people peanut fudge which was so nice but when I looked at the packet the best before date was the 29th of March. I know fudge would be okay but that's besides the point also my roll tasted like it had sat in a plastic wrapper for god knows how long.. collectively a horrible bakery that's overpriced but get away with it due to location and selling out of date products. Won't be going back there again. I advise others...