Laughing Dog Brighton - Café & Shop — Restaurant in Great Britain

Went there with my dad who's lived in the marina for years and we've never had such a disgusting experience regarding the service and the actual establishment.

First off we witnessed someone who I believe to be the owner cleaning tables outside with the dirtiest of cloths and 'spot cleaning' - lets have a lesson here shall we? When you have a bunch of people sitting at a table, eating, talking etc etc you don't follow with a cleanup targeting just where you can see a stain - you clean the ENTIRE table like any other self respecting establishment would...

Walked inside to the lovely smell one can only describe as a disgusting public toilet - we all know that smell so there was no disguising it.

At this point you must be thinking - why would you still eat here, well I had my 2 year old daughter with me who was really looking forward to an apple juice and anyone who has kids knows that once you have said the magic word 'ok' its game on whether you like it or not. I hasten to add the apple juice came from a bottle...

So we decided to suck it up and sit outside with one bottle of apple juice, a 'hot' chocolate and a 'hot' sausage roll.

The Sausage roll was sent back 3 times due to it being stone cold in the middle - 3 times no less! Each time I checked it and sent it back I was met with nothing but attitude from the spotty 'supervisor' I use this term very loosely because having run my own business successfully for years I would have fired you a long time ago.

At no point were we rude, at no point did we get angry but I politely explained that at attempt number 3 I was not really interested anymore as a mouthful each time of freezing cold sausage roll can turn your tastebuds off.

The 'hot' chocolate went back 2 times as it was lukewarm at best. On the second go the spotty supervisor came out again and told my 81 year old dad who was trying to explain how cold it was 'please don't interrupt - let me finish' before telling him that hot chocolate is served 'warm' in most places if its done right.

Now I'm not sure about you but I don't care too much for people who tell 81 year olds to 'not interrupt' especially when they are paying customers and have a valid complaint. I also don't care too much for people who don't wish to serve something how the customer wants it... I'm sorry - who is paying here?

At this point we requested a refund for what we had complained about which spotty agreed to and then decided to take a further 10 minutes to come back with it - they weren't busy so I can only assume it was a pathetic attempt at a slight.

At no point were we given an apology.

All this for a princely sum of 15 pounds!! Disgusting.

They will never have my business again or from anyone else I know that lives down here.

You're better off grabbing a sandwich from Asda over the road, that's how...

Firstly the food and coffee were really good! We had various baps and pancakes and all were very tasty.

However the service was really off - not sure if we caught them on a bad day/training new staff/on a trial shift, but it was very lacklustre. The lady delivering food to tables was walking around saying she had ‘some baps/breakfasts/pancakes’ etc but that she ‘wasn’t sure which ones’ as ‘they (presumably the kitchen) just gave them to me’. So we, and a lot of other tables, had to sort of look inside the food whilst she held it to see if the food was indeed for our table or not (the first few times it wasn’t our order at all), and then once we did get the correct food it was just placed anywhere on the table so we had to distribute it properly ourselves amongst our group.

The same thing happened with coffees - we asked if the coffee she was carrying was a cappuccino and she said ‘I don’t know, they just gave it to me’ - that coffee ended up on another table but I can’t help but worry about allergies and intolerances being easily ignored by this careless attitude? A dairy cappuccino could very easily have ended up with someone who ordered a non-dairy due to allergies!

After about 30 mins we chased our coffees at the till and we’re told that someone else had claimed them - again this suggests they are not actually delivering the right orders to the right people, which could actually result in some pretty bad consequences.

The waitress also didn’t seem to know where any of the tables numbers were, so often walked round shouting ‘F2 anybody?’, so I’m not sure why they needed our table numbers in the first place. There were also no knives available for us to eat with.

These things happened consistently for the couple of hours we were there. It wasn’t crazily busy either - there were several empty tables. A shame because the food and the decor are really lovely and a breath of fresh air in the otherwise slightly uninspiring marina village.

Hopefully just a temporary blip while they are training staff to learn table numbers and check what food they are delivering. Will happily try again on our next visit...

I live in Brighton and am often at the marina with my husband, we use The Laughing Dog a lot as the coffee is great. Also we would eat there as the food looks lovely but it is all (apart from cakes) kept open on the counter thus allowing customers to breathe,cough and sneeze all over it and the hair of anyone leaning over to fall in, not nice!! If not for this I would have given 5 stars Here as promised is my updated review: The laughing dog has improved considerably since they have installed the new glass cabinet to cover the food. My husband and I were there today and it had a great vibe, very relaxing, it is by far the best place for coffee, cake and food in the marina. Great for doggie people and their dogs...