Parliament Hill Fields Lido Café — Restaurant in London

Frustrating and Unfair Experience – Poor Treatment of Waiting Families

We visited the swimming pool today and had a very disappointing experience. I arrived at 10:00am with my small child, as the website stated that any leftover or no-show tickets would be allocated to people waiting outside. We waited patiently for over an hour, as the kind security guards reassured us that we should return at 11:30am for a chance to be let in.

However, when we finally entered the building at the suggested time, we were turned away by a young woman selling tickets. She justified this by saying we had shown her the wrong ticket earlier—which was simply a misunderstanding, not a reason to refuse us access, especially after waiting outside so patiently.

What made the experience worse was witnessing a older female staff member with short hair say “Finally, some normal people” and allow others who had just shown up—without waiting at all—to purchase tickets and enter. That comment was not only inappropriate and unprofessional, but it felt like an intentional disregard for those of us who had followed the rules and waited in good faith, especially families with children.

Additionally, the ticketing system is only available through a third-party site, with a very small booking window on specific days, and sessions are limited. This makes spontaneous visits nearly impossible and adds to the frustration when you try to follow the process and are still turned away.

We left feeling disappointed, embarrassed, and unfairly treated—especially after doing everything right and being as patient and polite as possible. I sincerely hope the staff is reminded to treat all visitors—especially families—with kindness and fairness, and that the booking and allocation system becomes more transparent...

The place is well stocked and the food and coffee are very good but the service is appalling. A bunch of miserable teenagers who seem to be enjoying being as rude and abrupt as they can possibly be. The words “please” and “thank you” appear to be alien concepts and they only smile at each other reserving an utter disdain for the families who’ve had the temerity to disturb them by patronizing the place. The operator of this cafe should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this - from previous reviews this has been happening for a while so they must be aware of it and either a) be allowing it to continue purposefully or b) they simply don’t care. This should and could easily be a happy, family friendly place and if the people who work there dont like doing it, they should go work somewhere else more suited to their demeanors, like an abbatoir or a...

Do not expect to be served quickly. This is a cafe where ordering anything can be a massive challenge. The staff seems to have difficulties to remember your order between the counter and the coffee machine. For lunch you can definitely give it a go if you like to gamble Russian roulette style. 2 attempts in 1 month. First lunch : 1 order arriving after 50min. Second lunch order not arriving at all as the challenge ia still there. Accepting payment fine. Sending the order to the kitchen.. Not fine. It's a shame cause the scenery is superb. But running a business without apologising to patrons when it take ages to get a coffee or when the food is simply not there is unacceptable. You lost my custom fellow French cafe owner. C'est vraiment dommage d'avoir un staff aussi...