Bread Ahead Bakery Wembley — Restaurant in London

It is 9.03am on a Saturday Morning. It is raining/ sprinkling outside. We attempted to enter at 9am and were ‘greeted’ rather rudely by a lady with “we are not open yet”. Perplexed we exited and checked out watch. We re- entered and ask when they open and if we had to wait in the rain. Thrown back by our persistence they hesitantly let us in and ask us to have a seat. The restaurant was empty, staff was sweeping the floor. The waitress tried to seat us at a table for two against the wall. We asked if we can sit by the window. Again, hesitantly and not trying to be rude she agreed to let us sit at the window. It is 9.10am and we are getting a menu card. Other customers are entering after us and are being greeted nicely as you would expect it. The waitress proceeds to take the other parties order first, it felt like retaliation: ‘if you would’ve sat here, I would take your order first’. In hence side maybe we were not at her table/area as a male waiter approached us. Yes, we are still giving this establishment a go as it came highly recommended. Our waiter is very professional and we placed our order after asking for his recommendation. We ordered eggs royal, a croissant and a toasted bread plus drinks. The food was disappointing. The poached egg on the egg royal was severely over cooked. See pics. The croissant was stale and not fresh. However the slice of toasted bread was great. They know bread. We sent the egg Royale back and just ask for the check. The waiter offered to re-make it or to provide us with complimentary donuts on the house. One lesson I learned, if you sent something back in a restaurant you better have a good feeling/vibe otherwise don’t bother. We didn’t bother. Overall, this restaurant has a great reputation but the service, staff attitude and the food do not live up to it. I would recommend only to pick up a loaf of bread. Good luck catching the staff with less attitude as this seems to have been a problem for previous customers as well. Our server was good that’s the only reason we left a tip. He...

We’ve always seen and heard great things about the food at Bread Ahead - we’ve done the courses and had takeaway doughnuts which have been amazing but we’ve never had the chance to dine in. Today for my Mum’s 70th birthday, we thought we would take her here for Brunch and disappointed is an understatement. Seated at a dirty table, we cleaned it ourselves. Had to watch 3 tables who arrived after us order their food/drinks before us and when we did get to order it was only because we flagged down waiters. We ordered 1 signature breakfast, and 2 eggs royale with drinks. The food arrived 10mins before the drinks, there was eggshell in one of the eggs royal, the signature breakfast came with watery mushrooms which weren’t on the menu and just made the toast soggy (lucky we didn’t have an allergy!), and no hashbrown which was on menu, when we asked for hashbrown it was brought over in a sauce pot and was cold, overall food was average and nothing to shout about. When the drinks finally came the teacup and milk jug were filthy and needed a deep clean. When we asked for a clean teacup the waiter took away the cup and didn’t come back for the whole meal! The only way my Mum could have a cup of tea was by me getting up to ask for a cup and explaining I wanted a cup was incredibly painful with your staff. No-one asked how our meal was, so at the end we had to grab someone to complain to, who didn’t apologise and just said I’ll speak to the chef about the shell. Lots of staff in there but none of them actually doing anything, just stood there looking confused. What’s worse is we had to pay for food and service charge before the meal, otherwise we wouldn’t have been paying full price. Sadly we won’t be returning and won’t be...

Visited on a match day with my lad, looking for somewhere a little more relaxed — sadly, the experience was really disappointing.

We waited 25 minutes just for drinks and were told we had to order food with them as part of the deal. Not ideal, but we understood — it’s not really a pub setup. Still, the service that followed was extremely poor.

The staff were clearly trying their best but were completely overwhelmed, running around with no clear organisation. I was told they usually work in zones, but on this day it was chaotic and any system they had seemed to fall apart.

I briefly spoke with the manager, Neil, who was pulling pints himself from the single beer tap. While I appreciate everyone mucking in, it’s hard to see how this was the best use of his time — handing out beers to frustrated customers at the bar while others continued to wait for table service just made the whole situation worse.

The waiters and waitresses were working flat out but never stood a chance. The management didn’t step up to control the flow, protect their team, or create any breathing space to recover service levels.

Full credit to the staff — they kept going and did their very best in an impossible situation. But honestly, they are being badly let down by poor leadership. Without better organisation and support, these good people will end up burnt out and demoralised.

Given the location, the management must be used to busy match days — yet somehow it feels like they are caught off guard every time. I spoke to three members of staff and each one said it’s usually worse, which says it all.

It’s a lovely venue, and the food that did come out looked great. Such a shame that poor management choices are letting the...