GAIL's Bakery Victoria Park — Restaurant in London

I went in the afternoon on Sunday, 22nd with my baby boy and my mother in law and ordered two takeaway coffees. After paying £7 for the two, I asked the barista for the lids but they said they ran out and only had the small lids. They really should have mentioned this at the till before allowing the customer to pay for the takeaways coffees. I said to the barista that I could not take these without lids and I even explained why… I had a baby and a pram to look after and just needed the lids as I needed them to go. The barista immediately became defensive and rude. Very insulting…and poured aggressively in smaller cups whilst mumbling insulting words. I mentioned that the way he did that was inappropriate and that I wanted for him to retake the cappuccino in a smaller cup (although I paid for the larger one) as there was no froth. He continued being insulting by mumbling Nast words and being rude. Anyway I then said this to the girl from the till and she was very immature in the way she answered and just didn’t care less but also clearly not experienced enough to deal with this. Said it’s ok when clearly it wasn’t…I didn’t go to Gail’s to pay for something, not getting the right product and for the insulting level of service!!! I mentioned that I was really not happy. I tried getting their names but they didn’t want to allow me to do. I really wanted to speak to someone who could act as the manager but everyone was very unprofessional and they didn’t allow me to put forward a complain. Appalling staff!! Very unprofessional and all I wanted was to have takeaway cups with appropriate lids. They should rethink to be honest and upfront with customers...

It’s sad that I have to leave this review but I’m afraid the quality and service in this Gail’s branch has been downhill for a few weeks now.

Today was the last straw - came into the branch and the staff was busy with preorders instead of the customers in the shop. After a significant wait to order, I received a soy latte with split milk that had been poured over in a rush. My partner who ordered right after me got his drink 7 minutes later, as the barista was busy with some other preorders and also bumped up some other customer ahead of him.

It had all been acceptable if the quality had been there. But paying 4 GBP for a coffee that was pretty much thrown into a cup on this assembly line operation? No thanks, not worth it at all. This is disrespectful of our time and trust in this chain.

I do hope management reads this and decides on some changes to this branch. In the last few weeks we’ve experienced various issues here: no pastries available at 8am (« kitchen running behind »), slow service, coffee not properly prepared.

If this shop decides to now also cover Deliveroo and preorders then something needs to be adjusted in their processes. As a loyal in-person customer my visits have become very poor...

I was looking for some local bakery stores around my neighbourhood area. I went a bit further from Stratford cross Victoria Park and came to this cafe. It has lots of homemade bread. I didn’t really read any reviews and went for what I saw in the shop. The sausage roll seemed to be freshly baked as I could see it was displayed from the tray. I ordered that and the cinnamon roll which looks really beautiful. I was very impressed with the sausage roll. I just realise people were commenting how good the sausage roll and they are brilliant!! It was warm and meat was so juicy with crispy pastry. The cinnamon roll was divine! This is an absolutely a brilliant cafe for takeaway and if you want some fresh bakery. I will definitely come back...