The Harbour Cafe — Restaurant in England

I went to the Harbour café today. I hadn’t been for a year and previously my family had been there regularly. Normally on a Sunday the cafe is busy with families, cyclists and tourists visiting the Rutland Belle but today there were far fewer patrons than expected for a sunny Sunday afternoon. When I stepped inside I realised why. Instead of an array of tasty cakes and a menu of freshly prepared dishes I was greeted with a selection of beige items sitting in heated cabinets. No inside dining space now either. The whole vibe was very “canteen”. My friend, who was hungry had a sausage roll which after a couple of bites was left on the cardboard on which it was served. The tea and coffee we ordered was from a self service machine in paper cups and at best mediocre. How can you make it so bad? Where were the cakes? The ice creams? The proper cups and saucers. The non beige food and perhaps some salad? The staff were pleasant enough but thoroughly disengaged. Apparently Anglian Water had taken over the café. Perhaps they should stick to what they know which clearly isn’t catering. I’ve had better school meals. So very...

August 2022. We used to go to the Harbour very often when we lived nearby, it was a wonderful cafe, beautiful surroundings excellent food and friendly staff. One of our favourite “ chill out” destinations. We moved away 2 years ago, but yesterday arranged to meet family members there- what a huge disappointment!! Anglian Water has now supposedly taken the cafe over, and it’s like an extremely mediocre service station. Self serve hot drinks, very limited range of pre packaged sandwiches and cakes, chips ( which to be fair were ok), but the entire ambiance of the place has gone, to be replaced by a “ get ‘em in, feed ‘em quick, get ‘em out” ethos. Definitely no longer a nice place to eat. We did venture to the upstairs cafe which at least has seating ( just to add to the “ service station” feel, the downstairs has no inside seating anymore, just a multitude of wooden picnic benches outside) but that had an extremely limited menu also. To sum up, The Harbour is ok for drinks if you’re happy to serve yourself in paper cups, but my advise is to bring...

This is a strange cafe. They are often closed when there are customers waiting. Yesterday was a lovely sunny day. We made our way to the cafe around 4pm. As we approached a whole crowd of people were leaving. As we got to the door someone inside was just telling another couple that the cafe was closed. So: they sent a whole lot of customers away (odd in itself) and turned down other custom. On another occasion we arrived (after sailing) at around 3pm to be told they no longer served hot food - only cakes. Amazing! the cafe is open and they don't have simple things like soup or jacket potato or lasagna-in-the-freezer-to microwave to offer to hungry travellers. Most of us who go there have been walking, sailing, boating or cycling. Why have a cafe with no hot food!? Why close when there are customers? Surely you could be flexible on closing times when you see the weather forecast?

On the other hand, when we do find therm open, the...