Sam's Cafe Primrose Hill — Restaurant in London

This morning I decided to try an egg and bacon roll from this shop as I was passing by “ I love a double egg and bacon roll/baguette” so I walk in just behind a lady, she sat down next to the entrance and I walk to the till to place my takeaway order, there was two girls behind the counter and they both looked like doing something, I said good morning she said good morning back to me not very friendly, not rude either but like ”not interested ” at the same time I could hear the lady that went in before me like calling their attention but they didn’t hear her I guess, I ask for a double egg and extra bacon baguette and a cup of tea to GO then I could hear the lady again at the entrance trying to get someone to serve her, I felt a little ashamed with the lady as i felt I jumped over her, so I told the girl serving me that the lady at the front was trying to get her attention but she kind of ignored me so she just told me that they only do brioche buns and not baguettes, so i said fine, please add some fresh tomato to it, then the other girl behind the till went to see the lady and told her, do you want the menu? Then the lady answered NOT I DONT WANT THE MENU, I’ve been coming here for the last 10 years I KNOW WHAT I WANT! That was that from that lady. I patiently waited for my order didn’t took long, and when it was handed to me I notice how small it look, I walk out and while outside I look at my order and I could see that there was only one egg and the yolk was all over the wrapping paper and they only gave me one napkin to use which wasn’t enough for cleaning my hands afterwards, no enough bacon to make it look like they put extra bacon as i asked them but they did put 3 thick tomato slices! Then I have the notification on my phone about what I just paid for this! £17.00 I couldn’t believe that! They charged me £17.00 for a takeaway?I wonder how much they charge to eat in? It was supposedly to be a double egg and extra bacon brioche! and it was the size of an double sausage egg Macmuffin from Mac Donald’s,,, not joke! I was very upset about it so I went back in and I told the girl I showed to her and she just apologised to me and told me that she was going to get me the other egg! I never ever complain about food in restaurants left alone sending it back to the kitchen for any reason “I just make a note to myself not to go there ever again” so I just asked for more napkins as the egg yolk was dripping through my hand and walk out feeling very upset, there was some empty tables outside off view from the restaurant I sat there and eat the egg and bacon brioche, the total truth is that it wasn’t even that good, if I was to compare it and rate it against those I have had from many other places I will give it a 3 out of 10! I’ve eaten many delicious egg and bacon rolls for half the price, now money it’s not and issue when it comes to eat good food if it really is good, £17.00 is not a lot of money if you have it, if you don’t have it you will have to work at least one one for it, depending on what you’re doing, no one will give it to you for free, so if you are going to charge that kind of prices for your food please make sure you have good stuff to look after people and to cook for the people as well as good reason to charge those prices for so...

Unfortunate choice of lunch venue and I won’t be repeating it. I know hospitality has difficulty finding staff but service was shocking. After waiting for 30 minutes for service we ended up finding our own menus and water, had to ask for our table to be wiped down after previous diners and then had to go to the counter ourselves to order food as no one came to take our order. Food, when it eventually arrived after staff had sat smoking on the kerb outside, was tepid and unimaginative. Pickles were substituted for cucumber without asking as ‘cucumber had gone off’ and salad consisted of 2 lettuce leaves with a dribble of mayo. Paying the bill turned into a farce as it took 3 different staff to figure out how to split the payment across 2 people’s cards. First attempt was charged, aborted and allegedly refunded. Second time someone else figured out how to work the machine. I was assured the refund had gone through but, to add insult to injury, on later checking with my bank my card has been charged twice for the same amount, with no refund for their first c**k up. When I rang to get a refund they tell me I have to drive across london, back to the cafe as they can’t refund over the phone. They also admitted that someone else has had the same issue today and no manager is working on site to resolve it. I rarely write reviews and wouldn’t have bothered if it had just been poor food and/or poor service but being charged twice for both and then being told to inconvenience myself to rectify their issue is a step too far.

Update- as a result of posting the review the owner has refunded one of the charges without me having to visit the restaurant again. For this I...

Really disappointing experience given how great the place looks. Obviously run by people who have a dream to run a cafe but haven't actually done it before, as we were told.

Waited an hour for a cooked breakfast when in a rush, without advance warning the kitchen were struggling. The table next to us gave up and left as they never got their food despite being already there when we arrived.

Service was friendly but not that helpful. They've got strange teapots that require filling twice to make half a cup of tea but no staff came outside for half an hour to refill them, check we were ok or allow us to ask about how long the food was taking.

No one seemed bothered we were not happy at the end either, not the sort of place where they offer to knock a cup of tea off the bill as an apology. Explained our frustrations but got a smile and a 'sorry about that' only; clearly happy to have locals who won't want to return.

The food itself was ok-ish. The breakfast was nothing special but very overpriced, with a £2 surcharge on top of the £11.50 to bring two slices of toast. The principle of paying extra for toast with a breakfast was the talk of the outside tables. It didn't compare to other cooked breakfasts in the area yet costs a lot more.

Wanted to try their coffee and crumble afterwards but ran out of time so got takeaway from elsewhere during the long wait for our bill to come.

Took our dog for a walk around the block a few times after and our plates still hadn't been cleared from our table despite the fact we had finished, paid, left etc.

The place looks great but they've got a long way to go to tempt business away from the...