Storyline — Restaurant in London

I work as a writer and started coming to this coffee shop because of its name and because it’s near my children’s school. I also occasionally crave their chapati and cheese roll which when served hot is really good but on many days like today they serve it cold or lukewarm and then it’s not as great. I came here today at 1030 and ordered my usual with an iced matcha and stood at the bar working. It’s noisy and the music too loud but I appreciate having a corner and being able to order food. Around noon I ordered a brownie and a bottle of still water. At around 130 when I was wrapping up my work, the lady behind the bar told me I was not supposed to stay longer than ninety minutes. There were at least eight empty seats around me. I told her I was done but isn’t it a bit unnecessary to tell that to someone especially when there were so many empty spaces? She said it was the policy of the place. I asked for her manager and she said she was not in. I had some more of a conversation with her to understand why she would ask someone to leave, someone who was not occupying an entire table and when the place was not busy but she didn’t seem to have any answers herself other than she was following orders. As I observe often the world is not getting any easier and if there is one place that I hope can hold courteous space is the service industry but much too often here too it is profit...

Popped in as it was quiet (had been aiming to head to the amazing Arôme bakery on the same street but it was packed so we came here instead. The place had lovely seating with a lot of spaces available - should have been a warning sign! We didn’t look at prices and ordered 2 flat whites and a portion of Lokma (6 very small doughnut balls of around 2cm diameter each that were drizzled with a little white chocolate and ground pistachios) that were recommended from the staff at the counter. The bill came to around £20, which was surprising for two coffees and a small serving of cake. I’m sorry but I cannot recommend this venue. The food was mediocre and the coffee was barely warm - yes I know about the temperature of brewing milk for barista coffee, but this was not meeting the expectations of that and was served at the very low end of lukewarm. Perhaps our drinks sat waiting for a while before staff brought over as we waited quite a while to receive them despite it being quiet. The coffee was remade to a better standard when we returned to the counter to ask for this. I noticed that the lady sat next to us exited leaving 3/4 of her orange cake on the plate so that can’t have been that nice either. I don’t like to leave bad reviews but I feel like leaving a warning for this place as it appears to be all style over...

I am surprised this place is having higher ratings. I live in the area and I wanted to come here since they opened as it looks beautiful from the outside I just came back from summer holiday and I walked in at 9:30 in the morning and there was 2 ppl working there until a third guy showed up late. The cashier didn’t know anything about what ever they had. I asked him about a wrap they had on display He didn’t know anything about it, he went asked and came back to me with no answer he just said something that I didn’t understand I asked him again and again and I couldn’t understand. I told him that I didn’t understand and he didn’t care. He didn’t even know what a sweetener is and he had to go and ask the Barista but they didn’t have (the barista didn’t bother to explain to him what a sweetener is) The Barista didn’t even notice that the cashier wasn’t able to help me because he either was busy trying to flirt with his client (my observation but I might be wrong) or he was just chatting to his friend/client. Even another client was asking to the manager because the guy wasn’t able to help her. Anyways thank you for giving me a bad...