The Old Sawmill Café — Restaurant in England

We've just had my father's 90th birthday celebration in the Reginald Farrar room upstairs at the Old Sawmill Cafe in Clapham. My parents have lived in Clapham for a very long time and are very familiar with the sawmill building. Since it opened as a cafe I've been up for Coffee and excellent Bacon Sandwiches with my Dad many times and we love it. For his 90th we checked the upstairs out as a venue and it is brilliant. It is spacious and light; the accessible lift is big enough to accommodate a wheelchair or a mobility scooter (we used it for both); there are plenty of tables and chairs; and there is an accessible toilet upstairs. This is a massive plus for a village location so the venue itself easily surpassed our expectations.

So, for our Dad's 90th birthday party, the communication with the Old Sawmill team was great. What the catering team offered for a buffet lunch was exactly what we were looking for and what was laid out for us on the day was even better than we expected. The Reginald Farrar room is a fantastic historic space and is ideal for so many types of event. As mentioned, access to the room for everyone, including wheelchairs, mobility scooters, etc. is easy. The food provided for the buffet lunch was delicious and generous. And everyone on the Sawmill staff we dealt with was ultra-helpful.

So, thank you to the Old Sawmill and all the staff for doing a great job for us. Our Dad and the rest of his family had a great celebration of his special birthday. We were made to feel very welcome and also we felt that we had great value for money.

If anyone reading this is looking for a venue for any event in the area, don't look any further. You're not going...

A most interesting building, with its old sawmill machinery on display and round the corner at the end is the water turbine and exhibition about its history and that of water powered electricity in general. Worth a visit for this alone. As I'd needed to pre order due to a group booking I wrongly assumed a 'burger' would be beef. It transpired that the burger of the day was chicken, whose adjectives I shall list: flabby, tasteless/bland and greasy. It had a slice of tomato and cucumber inside. The chips were the best part of the meal and pretty good. My fellow group members seemed happy with their paninis so I 'revived' the burger with lots of brown sauce and didn't complain. My wife's verdict on her jacket potato with tuna: "Plain, boring, no flavour at all. I had to add a lot of ketchup". It looked like it consisted of plain potato split open for a filling, with the part contents of a tin of tuna simply dumped on with nothing added. It came with a very minimal salad: "Also boring, no flavour, no dressing". Drinks: I had a nice ginger beer and my wife had an 'ok apple juice' though she only had half as staff cleared it away when I took her to the turbine exhibition. Staff however were friendly and helpful. Dining area: very nice, spotlessly clean and pleasantly laid out. Could be a nice stop for a coffee, maybe, or if you're after an English breakfast, but a cookery course for lunch food wouldn't go amiss here - and a more inspiring...

The old sawmill cafe has a captured audience at the beginning of a walking trail, no competition close by. It looks great but the prices and services are very poor. Waited over 20 mins just to get the drink I ordered and paid for. Other patrons who arrived after us were served first. When I went to ask about our drinks I was very rudely told, you will have to wait we are busy.😲 Not great and over £4 for a small coffee. They need to do better. As ever you will also get the owner who can write a reply after your review meaning you can't actually reply. The reply will tell you, they are sorry for the delay and they told you upfront. That no staff were rude because they overheard all the conversations and that you didn't wait the time you said. Yes we were busy but hey ho, pay your money take your chance. The table in front of me also had problems with the wrong food sent out. Oh by the way we're really expensive because we pay our staff the legal right of minimum wage, ooh yes we're in a nice area so you should pay us more, at a price of over £3:50 for a small coffee makes it at least 30% above normal high street brands serving good quality sustainable coffee, and yes we only like good reviews and only reply to negative reviews that make us look bad. It would be better sometimes if these establishments accepted they weren't great and just moved on.Ok. Ok. The staff weren't great and they know so any reply is just saving face. Own...