F. Mondays — Restaurant in London

Avoid the croissants. See below email exchange between myself and the owner. Turns out, it was my fault - I should have known it’s not a bakery.

Hello, I bought a croissant from you on Wednesday morning. Around 11am. When I got home I took one bite and realised it was stale - not rock-hard, days-old stale, but definitely not a flakingly tender, fresh croissant. Just too-many-hours-old stale. I therefore stopped eating it because it was horrid. Shame, because I was ravenous. I took it back an hour later. Your staff refused to inspect it, said it was physically impossible that it could be stale, and refused any refund. They unswervingly blamed their inability to give a refund on a policy insisted on by their boss, took my telephone number and assured me said boss would be in touch. Well, two days on and nothing yet. I look forward to hearing from you, Best regards, R

Hi R, Thanks for getting in touch on this. I'm sorry to read your feelings on your experience on Wednesday. I understand your thoughts and I appreciate your measured email to me. I hope my explanation than provide some perspective on what happened and why it happened. Bread Bread bake our pastries the night before delivery, they are delivered early in the morning, and we display them just before opening. If there are any pastries that aren't sold by the end of the day they are put into the bin. We are a retailer of pastries, we aren't the bakers who are baking the pastries early in the morning, then retailing our own baked products. There needs to be a realisation of the difference so there can be some management of expectations from a customers perspective. We don't advertise ourselves as a bakery, the shop doesn't look like a bakery or have any baking equipment present, so it's clear we aren't a bakery. It's clear we are a coffee shop retailing pastries. With the trend of retail bakeries opening in the last couple of years, there has been a rise of peoples expectations, and not everyone will recognise the difference between a coffee shop and a retail bakery. Why do we retail pastries that aren't of the same standard of a retail bakery? Simply - there is a demand for pastries anyway, and we sell a lot of them to little or no complaints. My business partner and I monitor the standard of pastries being delivered to us as part of our daily routine, and we visit 2-3 coffee shops a week that are of the same set up as our business, here in London, other cities in the UK and abroad, and the standard of our pastries are very similar or the same on comparison. Taking in everything above, we can't give a refund on this occasion. You've told me you expected a flakingly tender, fresh croissant, I think your expectations are more suited to a retail bakery. If I got a pastry of the standard you describe that you got from us, at a retail bakery, I would be as frustrated as you are, so I do understand. If there ever is a next time that you visit us -  I'd recommend popping the croissant into the oven with a little bit of water, for 10 mins on a low heat. This will refresh the pastry to almost the same as if it came out of the oven at Bread Bread. I hope all this can bring some resolution. Again, I'm sorry you had a negative experience with us. Ken.

Dear Ken, Thanks for your lengthy response. I've thought hard about how to respond to the astonishing justification below. I've decided to restrict myself to saying that I find your attitude unapologetically cynical and mean-spirited. Needless to say, I won't be back, and will be advising my neighbours of your response so they can judge for themselves whether to give F Mondays any business. Who knows? Maybe they'll agree with you and business will thrive. Personally, I prefer places run by people who take pride in the goods they...

I have been coming here for quite some time with my boyfriend- we love getting our morning coffee here before we make our way to the tube station in Brixton. The coffee is always amazing, and the food is fantastic- I love the breakfast cups and the pastel de nata with raspberries are my absolute favourites! The staff are ALWAYS very friendly and attentive and appropriately chatty with the customers. I love how relaxed and cosy it is in F Mondays- and I'm always super jealous of the people who are lucky enough to work remotely from F Mondays! They also have a stamp card so if you collect 5 (I think) stamps you get a free coffee- I love that (& the fact that it's 5 not 10 or 15 which I have actually...

Wasn't overly impressed by this place. Staff though friendly didn't seem to know much about what was served. V unimpressed by lack of any interest in maintaining vegetarian friendly food offering...v blaze attitude -which was completely at odds to at least 2 other places we went to 30sec walk away. It was also a bit pricey considering what we got. Kudos for serving/selling Alchemy coffee but not sure I would return just for that (& that's one of my fave blends), but Def not for food. Coffee was ok. There were others there who seemed to be enjoying their meals and...