The Hill Station Cafe — Restaurant in London

Community Matters - Do Visit The Hill Station Cafe SE14 5TW This very special unique Community cafe run by the dedicated lovely tireless Jacqui Shimidzu, has a very special place in my heart, since early June 2019 this place has played a crucial role in helping with my mental health recovery on so many levels, to the extent this place feels like part of my home. I have made some lovely new friends and met so many interesting engaging enlightening people from all walks of life.

This is such a tranquil place, if you want to experience good karma to chill out, read a good book, with a delicious homemade creation - be it on your own or with your friends, family, kids - this is the perfect place.

Open seven days a week from 9am-4.30pm. With a varied heavily weighted Vegan/Vegetarian friendly menu, including a great range of coffee's and soft drinks which are quite often locally sourced.

Also do check out the £5.50 jars of mouthwatering honey with a very distinct flavour, the lovely Agnieszka who works at the cafe, her family in Poland own a farm with 300 bee hives. This honey is delicious and an ideal gift.

On 8th October when I had one of my regular menu favourites which is soup of the day always with the cheese toastie which uses locally baked bread, everyone was treated to an impromptu piano recital by Hugh Harris, and this is just part of the delightful charm of this place - the sense of community is very strong and right across the full age spectrum, the Mum's with toddlers, very evident one of my visits were so quiet, no idea how you gals do it!

The Hill Trader shop I have found to be excellent for so many gift's and that everything is locally created is very positive - so do support, remember gifts are not just for Christmas.

The Hill Station Microlibrary I have found to be an excellent source for some great reads including even a few DVD's, and it's all FREE!

There is also a programme of regular evening events which more often are community based and quite varied - do check out facebook The Hill Station Page & Group to get a flavour, you can also speak to lovely Jacqui who is quite often at the cafe to find out...

Great place to come work from a laptop: lots of seating indoors and outdoors, some available plugs for charging, calm music. I'd happily come back here for these reasons, otherwise pretty disappointed by the service and lack of food options.

Arrived shortly after 3pm and tried to order a sandwich only to be told the kitchen was closed. Seems a bit early, doesn't it? I'm also only asking for a sandwich, not a cooked meal or anything. Ended up settling for a slice of cake instead, which wasn't ideal really.

Also the misery! The two people I interacted with seemed annoyed by the prospect of having to deal with a customer. When I asked about the cakes, the woman behind the counter spoke so quietly that I could barely hear her and seemed irritated to be taking my order, avoiding speaking to me as much as possible. Pretty weird and unpleasant to have to deal with. She also spent the majority of her time staying away from the till, using her phone instead. Oddly cold and unfriendly service, which contrasts with the otherwise nice atmosphere of the place.

They need to train their staff as well as offer food that isn't limited to cake only outside of certain hours. Pity because this place is...

Seems like a lovely community place for the neighbourhood and good atmosphere, however the service was the worst I've experienced anywhere in London so far. I tried to get an order in with an egg roll and one cappuccino with oat milk. Pretty basic you'd think. The guy at the till was either distracted or forgetful, but had to repeat it like three times to finally get it in. Straight after saying 'cappuccino with oat milk', proceeds to make a cappuccino with normal milk and hands it over. Eventually I get the correct drink in. After that, I end up waiting 40 minutes for the food, which is nowhere in sight. I go to ask inside, and all the staff members look at me equally blanked, with the kitchen lady saying she's never got that order from the guy at the till. Marvellous. At this point I've given up. Eventually, I got my food and the only plus to the whole experience was that they offered cake as a 'sorry'. However, really...