Bullet Coffee House — Restaurant in Hastings

I’m genuinely baffled by how poorly my family and I were treated at this establishment. Judging by other reviews, this wasn’t an isolated incident but part of a larger pattern that must be negatively impacting the business. It’s unfortunate to see the owner of an independent café display such contempt for customers.

It took about 20 minutes before our food order was taken. We asked three separate times for water and to have the table cleared. They eventually took a few plates but left the used cups. Soon after, our coffee arrived—and then the coffee machine exploded. I’m not exaggerating; there was an audible bang followed by boiling water dripping near customers. The machine had been leaking water over the mains electrical supply, and judging by the burnt-tasting coffee we received, this wasn’t a one-off malfunction.

It took approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes for our food to arrive. During that time, very few customers received food, and staff were turning others away because the coffee machine was down. Despite having less to do, basic duties like clearing tables and proper communication with customers were still ignored. Midway through the wait, a server informed us of an unspecified delay. We were initially understanding due to the coffee machine issue, but as time passed, it became clear this was not the only problem. Staff were visibly unengaged, and no one made any real effort to manage the dining area or customer expectations.

When we eventually went to the counter to express our dissatisfaction and politely requested a discount due to the excessive wait, the initial offer was to remove the (optional) service charge. We explained that this was insufficient. One staff member reacted with visible disgust and a defensive attitude, exclaiming, “Did you not see what happened with the coffee machine?!” We replied that while we understood, that didn’t justify the numerous other issues we experienced.

She called for the manager—who, we later learned, was likely the owner. As she came upstairs, we overheard her complaining about having to “deal with this.” Her attitude was instantly hostile. She told us our order was “complex,” which explained the delay—though our meals were standard items that shouldn’t take over an hour. She became increasingly argumentative, at one point loudly claiming that she trains her staff not to specify wait times to avoid complaints. This bizarre justification left us stunned.

In an attempt to de-escalate the situation, we suggested removing the cost of the drinks—just five: a couple of espressos, a flat white, an Americano, and a sparkling water—as a goodwill gesture. She refused outright in an aggressive tone. Ironically, this would have cost the business no more than £3 at cost price and likely prevented this review.

Realising this was going nowhere and seeing how distressed my mum was—on her birthday, no less—we paid the £72 bill and left, still shocked at the level of unprofessionalism. The owner showed no concern about losing a customer. Her attitude was as if she was doing us a favor by even engaging with us.

Now, to the food. The meals were uninspired and bland, with various vegan options that amounted to rearrangements of the same ingredients. The Vegan Breakfast Ciabatta was just store-bought sausage and bacon in bread with no sauce or seasoning. The Vegan Breakfast Pancakes were pancakes stacked with the same sausage and bacon, beans, and syrup—nothing special, and certainly not complex. Yet this was the dish blamed for our long wait. The standard Vegan Breakfast had a few more components but nothing that should’ve taken over an hour to prepare if the kitchen were properly run.

The coffee was also poorly made and the tap water was handed to me by the rim of the cup.

There’s room for mistakes in any hospitality setting—machine issues, delays, even underwhelming food. But what’s unacceptable is how we were treated when we voiced our concerns. The rudeness, defensiveness, and complete lack of accountability left us...

We’d walked past this place a couple times and it looked decent so decided to come in and have breakfast. Table was manky when we sat down and we also told we weren’t allowed to sit on certain tables despite the place being empty which felt v off. After ordering our food, we then had to wait 25 minutes for our food to come, again bearing in mind when we had ordered our food there was no one else in the cafe at this point (though people did come in later this doesn’t make sense as to why our food took so long). When our food eventually did come along, what came was shocking - i had ordered the eggs benedict royale with the addition of guacamole. The guacamole was clearly not fresh. It looked and tasted shop bought as it was smooth and slimy and the colour of snot, I also got the tiniest slither of smoked salmon that didn’t even cover one part of the “muffin”. The muffin was so over cooked I couldn’t even cut into it, the egg was watery and the hollaindaise sauce tasted like milk.

My partner got a fry up, which supposedly came with “mushrooms” - it came with one small mushroom, a half frozen hash brown and again the eggs were watery and gross with the bread completely inedible and like cardboard. Very clearly cheap frozen ingredients.

We ate less than half of our food before we decided we couldn’t eat the rest and decided to let the server know we weren’t happy and didn’t want to eat the rest or pay. We assumed this would be fine since we alerted our server less than halfway through our meal however a couple minutes later the im assuming owner and person who has been aggressively replying to bad reviews on here came up and asked what was wrong in a very confrontational manner. When we were told her what was wrong and we didn’t want to pay she wasn’t having any of it and got very aggressive, accusing us of eating “most” of the food and even when we pointed it it wasn’t even half the food she just carried on ranting at us and claiming she wanted the feedback when she was not listening to our feedback at all and every time we tried to tell her something she was just arguing back instead of listening. The staff looked tired as if this is a regular occurrence and you could tell other customers were shocked by what was going on.

I explicitly told her we were not there to argue with her and just wanted to leave but she kept going on at us. At this point I told her she was being aggressive and she then claimed we were being aggressive and turned it around on us, she then forced us to pay half of the meal bc it was “half eaten” even though we had clearly said we didn’t want to pay for such poor quality food and that we had not at eaten half of it, but at this point we were so tired from her arguing with us we just agreed to do this so we could get out of there.

Absolutely disgraceful behaviour. As I said when giving you feedback in the shop - take the criticism on the chin and just do better. You should not be serving such poor quality food at those prices!

Editing to add my response as the owner loves to tell lies.

Firstly we were neither rude or angry at your staff. We did not threaten anyone with a one star review to get free food as we told you after we agreed to pay half price by that point, and nor did we eat a large proportion of the meal, which we pointed out at the time and you actually agreed with. given you start your review with we are happy to refund if we are advised of the issue and when advised of the issue you just kept belittling us and trying to argue with what we didn’t like - you clearly are not prepared to be advised on any issues nor issue refunds which again is shown in your response here.

We are sorry you feel us giving you two one star reviews will negatively impact your business but perhaps you should think about that before sending out shoddy food and a...

A further reply

If you read my last message correctly you would have read that I have visited a few times not that I was a regular customer. I also mentioned that as I had never seen this gentleman before I assumed that since you have been closed, it came across to me that it had changed hands as there was not any regular staff that i had seen on previous visits. Thefore my initial comment still stands I thought that if this is the case and that it was new owners it was a shame as the standards from the last owners have dramatically slipped. Also please do not play that card I have not made derogatory comments about anyone or your buisness. I described members of staff and how they addressed the situation. In addition how I felt on during my visit, it's not that wish to slander your buisness, I am just making valid opinion on how I feel your service was completely different to what I had been used to in the past. Whether this slips and changes when you are not there is something you need to address with your staff.

Replying to the last message.

Hi, well apologise about the description of the gentleman if he was not bald, he was middle aged with very short grey hair wearing a blue shirt. The reason I complained now was as being a vegan I have visited your cafe quite a few times and was always greeted and served by an older woman with dark hair. I had never seen this gentleman before at all and as you had been closed I had wondered or thought it had changed hands. The reason for not complaining on the day was that the service was so painful there was a young boy on work experience and a young girl who were both so awkwardly shy and unsure about everything, even after having to remake one of the smoothies due to two being exactly the same. Myself being a pregnant women visiting with my partner and his 5 year old son felt so bad to having to keep asking the staff "Are you sure this is the right one", "it dosent taste how it should or even described on the menu". It was embarrassing for us and them, I have been in there place before as a young waitress not knowing how to act or respond to customers who enquire or complain about things. As it's not there fault they only serve the food and wipe the tables. So as a result I paid by cash and left maybe this is why you don't have any record, I dont know. As for a review being out of spite and hiding behind a review I am more than happy to post this review to Facebook so you can see who is complaining. I have no need to hide behind anything. Also your response is so cold and catty, your just a cafe that serves coffee and bit of breakfast with avocado on the side hardly a Michelin star restaurant. You either learn and grow from complaints or stay up tight and don't. Everyone is human and sometimes mistakes are made. The fact is that i felt your service seems to have gone down hill and your smoothies are awful. You take that as you wish but that is how I feel as a customer.

I came here a few weeks ago and ordered 4 of the smoothies which were the worst smoothies I have ever tasted. As someone who makes fresh juices and smoothies at home I know what consistency and taste they should resemble. However I was served syrup based smoothies which were watery and extremely sugary. On the menu it suggested they were made with ingredients bananas and nuts yet there was no trace. I had to check with the young members of staff that they were the correct ones, they themselves was so unsure. Whilst this was going the owner or front of house bald gentleman has clearly never ran an establishment before to not realise that customers are not happy when there are only one other table in the restaurant. He continued to talk about himself the whole time whilst his young not trained well enough staff dealt with the problem. Terrible service would...