Library Pot, Board Game Cafe & Licensed Restaurant — Restaurant in London

First things first, we walked in and i immediately felt like it was going to be a cool place. We were then seated and given a load of laminated menue papers as well as a few books with a bunch of information in them as well as more menus. (I would suggest an easier layout for the menues and maybe keep it to two pages of easy to cook things that are quick and you know cafe style items) The lady explaining things to us was quite hostile about us wanting to play monopoly and suggested something else. We then were told she would explain everything to us once we had ordered (which I didn't know we had to order food to be able to play but this was not made clear to us especially as not all of us had seen the website) so me and my partner shared a ham and cheese panini and the chocolate fudge cake. I would not recommend either of these menue items as they are both quite expensive and not too tasty. The panini was very small for the price and the cake was dry and old with a bit of icecream chocolate sauce dribbled over it to maybe attempt it coming back to life. Most of the menue items are really expensive for a little independent place like this and the pressure to buy food was a bit much. I felt as though our waitress did not know how to speak to customers or how to explain things in an easy to understand way to make our experience better. The next thing is the bathroom, there was a layer of what I could only describe as scum on the wall underneath the hand dryer this was disgusting and really bad hygiene practise. There was also a bunch if clutter underneath some sheet in there as well as some left over deodorants on top of the toilet (why?) I think that this cafe needs some good bleach, customer service training, a new menus and just an all round revamp as unfortunately the experience I ,and most of the people I know who have been here have had, has been terrible. I hope the manager takes all this into account rather than blaming customers (as I can see from his replies to...

The Library Pot has the potential to be one of the most popular and trendy places in Richmond, however, accessibility and customer experience needs to be worked on if this cafe wishes to be the very best in its niche.

The Library Pot is conveniently located (5 mins from Richmond St.) and upon first impressions, me and my friends were fascinated by the wide variety of board games and liked the cool, intimate layout of the place. We were shown to a table (pre-booked) and given multiple laminated menus.

As customers, the large amount of food items (some dishes were random and overcomplicated), high prices relative to food quality and portion size, slow service (45+ minutes for a panini that was simply a small piece of bread with cheese and ham stuffed inside... £5.95...) and the fact that we felt pressured to order food, made us feel quite overwhelmed and anything but in the mood for some fun games with our mates.

The strengths of this place is the many different types of board games. I understand that the cafe's ethos is to veer customers away from typical games and to try something new, but if we pay the £5 service charge and want to play monopoly, it would be mutually beneficial to just allow us to have a beer and laugh at one another as each one of us goes to jail... in monopoly, I must add ;)

Judging by the reviews it seems as though others have encountered the same issues as we did.

To justify the food prices I would highly advise improving the quality, delivery time and portion size. And to account for the cover charge, perhaps try and make it a more laid back atmosphere and be more adaptable to...

Lovely and cozy place. The selection of games is fantastic, the menu has a fun design (I really liked the way the games are sorted by complexity and number of players). The staff was great as well, excellent service. The £10 minimum spend per person doesn't sound nice though. Most of the time people will fancy drinking and eating anyway, so introducing the idea of a forced minimum spend is not the best, in my personal opinion, specially since there is already a £5 gaming table fee. I can understand it, and we all want places like this to prosper and last, and this is probably what the business needs to survive. So even if I don't specially like it, I can understand the need for it. A suggestion could be to just charge £15 per person straight from the beginning and offer a selection of drinks and food included in the price, as well as additional plates or drinks that can be paid separately.

However, something that I didn't like at all was the £3 table service on top of the rest of the bill. I was disappointed that this wasn't mentioned anywhere, or explained at anytime, and makes me wonder why it isn't already included in the table fee. If you are telling the customer how much they need to spend in advance, then this should either be mentioned as well, be an optional charge, or not...