Towpath — Restaurant in London

A awful lot of drama included with a lovely cup of tea and a lovely view.

I’m conflicted as I committed to not write a bad review, because I wondered if what happened to me was an isolated incident. But sadly, so many others have had the same experiences - if you look here and on Tripadvisor - rudeness, dismissiveness, no apologies when they’re due, made to feel like a pain not a customer, humiliation, and even gaslighting. And this over several years. It’s quite toxic.

In my case, I was seated in a staff area without even being warned it was so. And had a pen thrown from behind me at that table by the same person who sat me there. Pretty awful. I got this awful response when I tried to confidentially and sensitively raise it, quietly at the cash desk, by asking for whoever’s in charge whenever they had a second. I waited and was shocked by what happened next.

I was labelled by the owner - apparently a fairly accomplished and well-known person - as “aggressive” and humiliated in front of everyone in the tiny space by her. She climbed down when challenged for specifics.

I’m an ethnic minority and doctor who just popped in for a cup of tea. I wouldn’t have a job if I went around being aggressive, and we face far worse abuse in our job.

I wonder if it’s something she does often; a seemingly easy accusation to make, to threaten people and make them feel small or get a reaction? It’s often done against men and women of my colour, if we are assertive and not subservient when eg people are acting inappropriately or rudely. Quite a shock that it happens in a place like this - and with regularity it seems from everyone else’s reviews.

She refused to change her stance and eventually said “well from where I was, it FELT aggressive”.

I got quite worried when she talked about other people “not making such a fuss when they’ve had food dropped on them”, followed by suggesting “I think you should just let it go… if you’re able?” She’s also told other customers (see Tripadvisor) “they’re too stressed” and shouldn’t be there. Might be a case of projection there…

I think the owners and staff have clearly got a lot of their own stuff going on, and don’t really care about how they make people feel, or their staff being kind. They probably have enough people who come for the view and may never come back.

If you think the reviews of their behaviour are bad here, or mine’s isolated - check out Tripadvisor. Virtually word for word, what I experienced including the ridiculousness of calling people “too stressed” and telling them they shouldn’t be there, when somethings wrong with their experience or meal, and gaslighting them like they’re the problem.

I won’t be going back.

Big mistake for me to think about this like I do when a patient has a bad experience - I’m always upset if anyone has anything bad to say; and listen and am kind. Because I care and am proud. You won’t get that here.

I’d also be careful if you’re a visible minority. I can’t prove they were racist, but a lot of others who have seemingly minority names had similar experiences on...

Very underwhelming experience here.

Waited about 45 minutes for a table which is not really a problem as we came knowing this place was popular and a wait was likely - but just manage your expectations if you're coming here at a weekend, you will have a pretty long wait for a table and if its raining, you'll get wet.

Once seated we waited a little while before realising the only menu was on aboard on the wall. Not a problem except nobody told us this. I saw several other tables also asking for menus after several minutes to be told about the menu on the wall (not visible from more than a couple of tables either, so not easy to spot).

Waiting staff were all very friendly and helpful, brought water which was regularly topped up. We ordered a couple of coffees and 5 items from the menu between two of us.

Coffees came quickly. Food did not. Even the 'cold' items we had ordered took ~1 hour to arrive and it was 90 minutes before we'd been served everything we ordered. Towards the end of our meal someone brought over our complimentary bread that apparently all tables get - couldn't help but think if this came while we were waiting for our food we may have thought less of the wait. We came here aiming for a late brunch but it ended up being a very late lunch.

The food itself was nice enough without being outstanding - decent quality ingredients and well prepared, but not worth the wait when there are lots of other good quality restaurants in East London that seem to run a lot more efficiently.

Another quirk of the service is that you have to go up to the counter to pay - but just with the menu on the wall, nobody seems to tell you this. We only worked it out as we saw others doing so.

Last but not least, this place doesn't have customer bathrooms which to be honest shocked me. This is definitely a restaurant rather than a cafe where you'd go and grab a takeaway coffee (although I think you can), and given the wait times both for a table and then for your food, a bathroom is really essential.

They don't seem to allow booking of tables, which would be a simple way of avoiding the long wait times and might help them plan a little better to speed up service as well.

This place seems to be somewhere that has built a bit of a social media reputation with influencer types. I wouldn't believe the hype - there are loads of better places, its just in a nice spot by the canal so looks good in...

My friend and I stopped here for a coffee and snack on a Tuesday with our babies. The lady was so exceptionally rude and unfriendly. I rarely leave reviews but I couldn’t let this slide. Not understanding how ‘hip’ this place tries to be, I waited next to a large table already taken by two ladies who said they would be happy to share with me and my friend. The waitress proceeded to ignore me. My friend then arrived and tried to join me. The waitress intercepted her and said something about needing to wait at the other end (obviously there was a waiting system we were unaware of, the place was maybe 1/3 full and there was no obvious line. I actually have a photo of the cafe I sent to my friend, and it is clearly mostly empty). The waitress took us to a much smaller table and asked us to sit there instead (I thought it was because our prams would be slightly on the walkway if we sat at the larger table but apparently that wasn’t an issue…). As we tried to manoeuvre the prams around the table she said we couldn’t block the other two seats as people will need to sit there. We were SHOCKED. Why were we not allowed to sit at the larger table with the other two ladies that was still empty? Instead we were being seated somewhere we couldn’t breastfeed and would be crammed around a tiny four seater when the place was pretty much EMPTY. We said oh I’m not sure others will fit around this small table with the prams, she said that’s just the way it worked as they needed to maximise seating. We discussed between ourselves how this maybe wouldn’t be fair to whoever was sat next to us eventually (because we’d need to breastfeed etc) and talked about leaving, the waitress overheard us and said ‘oh if this doesn’t work for you it’s fine if you leave’. Are you kidding me???? Yes we left, and we were upset by how unfriendly she was. We don’t require special treatment just because we have babies, but some common sense (maybe flexibility when not super busy??? I know they like to ‘plan ahead’ but this was silly. It was already past midday…) and basic manners would go along way. All they seemed to care about was maximising seating so they have the potential to make the most money possible even when they are clearly not at capacity. I will never return. I’ve repeated this story a lot and have been assured the...