Chaiiwala — Restaurant in London

I took two of my friends to Chaiwala in gants hill branch. Sharish served us 3 slices of cakes, pistachio cake, coconut sponge cake and a kunafa cheesecake. The cakes were stale and hard, it was simply inedibale. I called over Mariam who checked the cake. She said their cheesecake were meant to he hard and it was fine. However agreed that the other two slices were hard. She said she would get us fresh ones from the back and left. She came back with two slices of cake, literally the creams were melting away. Took a bite and the cakes were hot and soggy with that same stale taste. I went to the counter and when I told Mariam she said oh it didn't work. I told her had she microwaved the slices and she said i can see it didn't work. I asked her why she didn't give fresh slices from the back as she promised and she had no answer. Sharish said I could have different slices which I refused as they would also be stale. So I asked for a refund and she said she will refund two and cheese cake is meant to be like that. She gave me cash for the two and said she knows these two were slightly hard when she served it but cheese cake was good. So I asked her why she served the slices knowing it was hard. She said she has apologised. To which I had to disagree as no apology was given and rather Marian was trying to pass the stale cakes as new slices by microwaving it. The taste before microwave and after were horrible. It ruined our entire experience. After the ordeal we could not even enjoy out karak chai. I left the cash refund and left. I told the workers about their bad service and told them I will leave a feedback with the head office and a review online. I felt I was...

We dropped by Chaiiwala Gants Hill for a quick snack, but unfortunately, the experience was far from pleasant. The service was appalling from the start — slow, unhelpful, and at times, outright rude. What shocked me most were the extra charges for the smallest things. I ordered a lemonade, which cost £3.75, and was told that I would be charged an additional £1 just for a 3 mint leaves to be added. To make matters worse, the lemonade tasted terrible.

We also ordered a vada pav, and the inside — the vada — was frozen and clearly not cooked properly. When we asked for an extra glass to share the lemonade, we were told it would cost an additional 40p, which makes absolutely no sense in a self-service style setup.

I’ve visited other Chaiiwala branches like Ilford and Liverpool Street, and the service there has been better — especially at Liverpool Street, where the staff were at least polite. Sadly, that wasn’t the case here. The staff at Gants Hill seemed disinterested and untrained, with no sense of customer care.

The prices are higher than what you’d expect at a casual eatery, and yet the quality, quantity, and cleanliness fall far below acceptable standards. The tables were dirty, the atmosphere was uninviting, and the food was poorly prepared.

If Chaiiwala as a chain wants to maintain a good reputation, they seriously need to improve staff training, service quality, and overall food standards — especially at this branch.

Will I be visiting again? At this point,...

Absolutely appalled with how I was treated here last night. Was being served by a woman called serish or something like that. Middle aged women that just looked absolutely miserable. She was rude and confrontational for absolutely no reason. My friend asked how much the teas came upto 3 times as he didn’t hear her and she was so rude that she ignored himc completely. I then commented and said that was rude to which she replied. I already said it three times. To which I responded well clearly he didn’t hear you. We ordered an extra tea by accident and asked if we could return one to which we was told no you can’t. We hasent even touched the teas. For a business that’s expanding at the rate it is alhumdulillah I would definitely avoid employing staff who don’t have common courtesy or know how to speak to people politely. 2 staff specifically that I were rude was that serish women (I can’t remember her name properly) and a guy called farhan. (He said we couldn’t return the teas) Apparently the managers name was fahad who came out afterwards and apologised to us only because he saw we was writing reviews. Upon checking videos that we made at branch yesterday I don’t even think he was the manager. He was just posing as him so we didn’t leave a negative review. Shocked at how we was treated.. don’t care about the £2-£3 that the tea cost. It was the way we was spoken to and treated that was...