Salt Café — Restaurant in Fareham

Let me first start of by saying I never ever write reviews. I have also previously enjoyed coming to your cafe, eating from the small but enjoyable menu, taking in the view and walking our dogs by the sea. I live in walking distance of your cafe, I am essentially your ideal target customer. Regrettably, I have to inform you that out of choice I will not be returning.

On the last two visits the service has been well below the standard I would expect. The first time I had to wait 20 minutes after my partner's food was delivered, because a mistake was made on my order, meaning it had to be cooked again.

This time we ordered and then sat waiting for forty minutes, nursing a glass of water, before enquiring how much longer the food would be. The response we were given was there was a problem putting our order through but that they would now make it straight away.

In the forty minutes that elapsed from our order being taken, the waitress who originally served us walked past our table 5 to 6 times. Did it not dawn on her (or any of the other staff who walked past) that it seemed a bit strange that we were sat there with only 2 glasses of water the whole time? How about checking in with us during this period to see if we wanted anything else or if everything was OK? How about checking in with the kitchen to find out when the food was coming? How about showing some basic initiative and awareness and realising we were sat waiting, table empty, stomachs grumbling, kitchen oblivious, 40 minutes later?

Unfortunately, the poor service seemed to also extend to the two ladies on the neighbouring table where one had to wait 15 minutes after her food was brought out to go cold, before her friend's food arrived.

I understand mistakes happen but everything I've discribed is avoidable with a basic amount of care, training and initiative. Surely with the recent events of Covid and the cost of living crisis, businesses in the food service industry should be going out of there way to ensure they give their clients not just a good level of service but something over and above that justifies Joe public parting with their hard earned pennies when financially we are all struggling.

Is it the lack of training, staff who don't care, management who have become complacent? Probably all of the above but it unfortunately seems to occur far more in the UK than it does when I travel abroad. I can only conclude that restaurant/cafe owners in the UK simply do not care about providing a good level of service and it puts me off...

We had heard great reports about Salt Café and yesterday we managed to find it. I do not usually do negative reviews as taste and choice varies from person to person, but I feel with just a bit more care when serving up things like fried eggs, the breakfast we had, and to which we had been so looking forward, could have been amazingly good. So here goes. After following the circuitous boardwalk from the carpark we reached Salt Café which is beautifully located right on the edge of Wicor Lake on the upper stretches of Portsmouth Harbour. It is slightly quirky with a mish mash of chairs, sofas and tables both inside, along the outside and on a "pier" and we were greeted by a lovely member of Staff who showed us various seating options. After checking out their cake selection, we decided to go for breakfast at £12.50 each as it was still only about 1145. What could (and should) have been a delicious grilled breakfast treat for us was actually very disappointing. I had requested lightly done bacon, but not only was it overdone but it had "dried out". It was also very, very fatty as is often the case with the collar rashers. The sausages also appeared to have been cooked and kept warm, but the mushrooms and tomatoes were excellent as were the baked beans. However the eggs, which were just as I like them, had not been drained and were swimming in fat which covered my plate and when I took the little mug of beans off my plate, the fat on the bottom of it dripped onto the table. And dripped again and there was still some visible on the plate! Having owned and run a small hotel a few years ago, I would never have served these meals and, with just a tiny bit more care when plating up, Salt Café, you would also avoid it. My husband's meal was similar but the fat had been soaked up by the slice of toast under his eggs which he could not eat. I'd declined toast. However, I must say we both enjoyed the fries we shared as an extra and the coffees were good, so will we go back to give them another chance to up their game? Maybe as, as I said, it had been highly recommended by friends who must have had a better experience! I decided to post on here rather than TripAdvisor and hope my constructive criticism will be viewed in the way in which...

We have been here a couple of time and the service isn’t the quickest but food quality has been good. But this Sunday has been terrible, we booked online for a table at 12pm but we arrive a bit early and ask if our table was available yet. She told us that there is no booking has been made under our name and she said that they are fully booked. But we have seen few tables were empty. Then she said that there is a table available at 12:15 and we said we will wait. We asked if we can order a coffee while we wait and she said well you just have to order it outside and get a take away cup. We said ok we will do that. We go and order outside and the service was slow and the person serving us doesn’t know if they have syrup or not. We waited outside till 12:15 and when we went inside the girl in the ( the least helpful and looks like she can’t be bothered to with her job and don’t care) front desk said your table is still not available and ask us to wait which we did. Then while we are waiting there a couple behind us who ask for a table for two, who did not book and got seated before us. We wait for 10min before someone else notice that we have been waiting. Then we wait few more min for them to clean the table. We order our food and drink. I order peppermint tea and my husband order English breakfast tea. When the drinks arrived my teapot was not even half full of water. Then when I asked them for a little bit more they filled the whole teapot full of hot water. Making the whole pot tasteless and just like drinking hot water. This just show lack care with customers service. When the food arrive the sausage we have order clear have deep fry to its life and very dry. The bacon is clear not cooked fresh and has been sitting in the food warmer for a while because it’s was very hard and tough. Hardy can taste the feta cheese. In the menu state there there is chilli oil again can’t taste the chilli oil. Over experience is really...