Waite & Rose Café — Restaurant in London

Avoid the cafe if you want a hygienic dining experience and want to come away with clean clothes.....A nice large branch with a decent selection although not as good as other branches.

I like to visit and get a coffee and a cake as I would at Peter Jones in Sloane Square. Its convenient to me and I can combine with my shopping.

However, this branch is not recommended at the moment in terms of cleanliness. If you go on a morning, expect many builders in dirty overalls. It should be added that much of the work being done in the area is currently ground work - laying soil pipes etc, much of it on recently contaminated land.

I have raised the issue with the branch who told me that they don’t see anything wrong with this and that I should not expect a “sterile” environment.

Its shocking that they feel this way and bear in mind that many of the cakes - pastries etc are on open display meaning that you lean in and pick your own. Look at the jacket of this builder and just imagine that jacket grazing your Danish pastry. Imagine him sitting down and then you sitting afterwards and dirtying your clothes.

I recommend not dining in good clothes as I did and I do not recommend eating a self service cake for the above reasons.

Otherwise, the store is bright and airy and I am aware that the builders will eventually no longer be there, so improvements are inevitable. They could remedy this current issue by offering a “delivery to site” service or by taking all cakes behind the counter to avoid decontamination or even saying that the builders can’t sit down in soiled garments, but they don’t seem to care. Frankly, I can see it from their economic mindset that why should they care if a customer complains about this when they are currently making a roaring trade from soiled builders.

If I go back, I will be sure to wear my...

My local Waitrose that I shop at every day:

PROS: Very friendly staff, always happy to help, mostly the younger staff are the most helpful and very polite and friendly I have noticed.

Fruit and vegetable quality is fantastic.

They could have a better range of vegetables though- for example Okra and savoy cabbage.

CONS: The security guard does follow people around though, slightly unnerving.

One of the ladies on the self-checkouts asks if you have paid for your 5p shopping bag, every time.

They tend to ID only the minority race people when buying alcohol I've noticed on several occasions.

The range of meat could be better as well as the fresh fish counter.

Better discounts on out of date food - less good than most Waitrose stores.

At the customer service desk - sometimes they could acknowledge you and say will be right there instead...

Waitrose normally have better customer service than most supermarkets, with the exception of a few in this store, majority are caught up with a sense of entitlement that you should be grateful that they take your money. From never smiling to speaking with their friends a checkout for 10 mins then getting offended when asked "do you mind, I have to get to work". The bakery isn't functional, it's there for eye candy, you don't get fresh baked goods, you don't have the smell of fresh baked bread, pastries are rock hard, the Gail bakery's goods are delivered in and within a day they can be used for door stop (avoid those at all costs). For a good size store it's not used very well, selection of items isn't great. Positive you get 2hrs free parking and it's next door...