PAUL Upper Street — Restaurant in London

I would rate Paul’s on Upper Street a 2 which is a real shame because the food and drinks here are lovely however, the cafe is let down by one member of staff. We went to Paul’s earlier this week. When coming in from the rain with our 4 children (ages 18, 17, 10, 2) we greeted the female server (Nana) behind the counter with a smile and asked politely if we could sit down, she responded with a dirty look and said very rudely “you’re going to order something, aren’t you?” To which we politely answered yes! When taking our order she also very rudely asked “yeah, what do you want?” And when paying she demanded to know whether we would pay by cash or card- implying that I might use fake cash or struggle to pay. However, I paid using my card and only then did she take her focus off us. We are South Asian and I observed her behaviour with customers who are white (with and without children) and noticed that she was extremely polite and friendly with them all. This server was very rude and made us feel very uncomfortable and unwelcome, it’s an absolute shame to see this kind of behaviour in today’s multicultural society. Management, although your food is lovely you’re sadly let down by certain members of staff with poor customer...

By the standard of an Islington Upper Street coffee shop this one is near the bottom of the list, even more shocking as the brand PAUL is meant to be more premium than the Neros and Starbucks that put this place in the shade. Positives are that the food is good, coffee adequate so takeaway is ok. Also it’s very small and basically empty so not too noisy to sit in.

However the ambience is awful a fairly miserable seating area, made worse by a deafeningly loud machine in the cupboard that has been locked open for some reason?? I closed the door which was wide open when we arrived but could not completely due to the lock. Staff very odd, no other customers, 3 staff but still very extremely slow, gave me a takeaway cup when I was drinking in, (despite giving my friends mugs?!). When I came in a girl was sat in normal clothes on the bar casually chatting to the guy who worked there, were weird, like I was interrupting them.

They offer free coffee for any 5 star reviews, I still couldn’t bring myself to do it, but that explains all the 5 stars for this low quality venue!

Visited at...

As with every Paul, the bread and cakes are fantastic but the service here leaves a lot to be desired. When I was there the cafe was empty yet after ordering, paying and sitting down no more than 5 metres from the counter, the server shouts ‘coffee ready’ a few minutes later and dumps them onto a tray. Same with the sandwiches. She then calls the same five seconds later when I was still sitting thinking this was some kind of joke. There were three staff standing idle behind the counter, none of them thinking to clear the used tables or sweep the dirty floors. You would think that if you are paying extra(!) to eat in and there’s nothing for them to do, surely they would take it upon themselves to bring a paying customer their food. When I went up, the server was very snooty and patronising. Why she has chosen to work in a customer facing role...