GAIL's Bakery Crouch End — Restaurant in London

I joined the queue whilst looking up at the menu trying to decide what I want. I'd never been to Gail's before so I didn't know what was good.

Once I got to the til it was clear staff were unhappy to wait even just a minute so I pointed to a cake in front of me (the peacan and toffee one) and ordered a coffee, although I was starving and needed something more. My boyfriend took a few more seconds and smartly ordered the mozzarella, pesto and tomato ciabatta and a tea. The blond lady at the til seemed displeased.

We sat down and had our food and once it'd got quieter I'd ordered the ciabatta too and my boyfriend opted for a brownie. The same til lady came over to our table and her eyes popped and rolled at the sight of our old plates, as if to say "how much can you eat?!"

It's a real shame as the food is good but your staff are absolutely disgusting. Please have them go and do some customer service training. I've worked in retail for ten years before getting my career and I'd never dream of treating paying customers this way!

The food is also over priced (£30?!) and it's a chain. With so many good independent cafes and bakeries here I highly doubt we will ever return!

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Absolutely love Gail's handmade chicken and chestnut pie - superb. Their service, not so much. It is atrocious!! Been into Crouch End bakery 4 x and it was on the same (non existent) level on each and every occasion. Today, the woman with bright red hair restocking the fridge at the door was telling off her colleague for being late and the time he was taking lunch. In front of all the customers. Do this in private please! I felt so uncomfortable. My take away coffee took unreasonably long to make because she (redhead) and the dark-haired barista were too busy talking about how she (red head) told young lad off. Making me wait because you are gossiping and laughing because you embarrassed the young lad is infuriating. I noticed how the other young server rolled her eyes when a customer asked her for a pain a chocolat and changed her mind. This is what has forced me to leave this review. Yes you have your regulars but this is damaging your brand and I for one will instead go to elsewhere for better service which is readily available in the other bakeries and independent coffee shops...

The baked goods on sale at Gail's Bakery are second to none, they do a really great job on the quality of their produce, HOWEVER there are several issues which have put me off recently: The food is all out on display with no glass partition between it and customers so I - on several occasions - witnessed customers coughing, sneezing and spitting (when speaking) onto the food. I have witnessed a person picking up some bread, squeezing it and putting it back on the shelf. The bread was not packaged and she did not have gloves on. I witnessed a man leaning over the baked goods and dropping his in-ear headphones into the food - ugh! The final straw was seeing the number of flies in there buzzing around the cinnamon buns one hot day.

Don't get me wrong, I love the food and I am even prepared to pay over the top - Gail's absolutely is NOT shy with their prices, the cost of their baked goods is definitely on the wrong side of reasonable - but this level of uncleanliness has put me off. I hope Gail's reads this and does something about putting a barrier between their food and the...