The Lock Tea Room — Restaurant in Maldon

We arrived and waited outside to be seated. A pleasant member of staff asked as if we wished to be seated inside or out? When we requested inside, she immediately invited us inside to get out of the hot sun and promptly put two tables together to accommodate my mothers wheelchair.

And that’s the end of the good service we received and where where we stayed for the next twenty minutes!!! Completely ignored by the 4 or 5 staff working inside, around the till, and in and out of the kitchen. They most definitely were not over stretched as the tea room was fairly quiet.

After 20 minutes I attracted the attention of a young waitress and asked if they would take our order. She apologised and said she thought we had already been seen to.

We ordered a cream tea for two and extra tea. As there was 3 of us and none of us have massive appetites.

When the tea came I would give a 5 out of 10 for the amount you pay, it’s extremely poor…. Tiny pieces of cake, and dry sandwiches.

The presentation is good, but the quality is poor. There wasn’t enough tea for the 3 of us and it was only when we complained at the end as we were paying, that it was pointed out to us that unlimited tea was in the small print on the menu with a cream tea. Unfortunately we didn’t have a menu on our table, so I suggested it would be good in future to point out to customers that this is the case.

I think that this cream tea for the price re comparable venues is extremely poor and would suggest you go elsewhere. It’s beyond me how they could justify the price for what we received.

One of our favourites is the Roslyn hotel in Thorpe bay and is in a different league for the same financial outlay.

In addition, the ambiance wasn’t helped by two screaming and poor behaved children, dancing around the tea room disturbing all the customers.

A small attempt was made by the staff to speak to the parents, where they pointed out that hot food and drinks were being served. But nothing changed.

All in all a very poor experience, for something that cost nearly forty pounds. We certainly won’t be coming again.

Visited Monday 15th August at...

Also called The Lock Tea Room. Lovely to sit outside on a nice sunny day and watch the river. Lovely food, nice service and delicious choice of homebaked cakes. Had quite an expensive full English breakfast here which was rather greasy unfortunately and my friend had smoked salmon and scrambled eggs which she wasn't too impressed with and found the salmon quite chewy. Items can be added to the full English for £1 each, but not taken away eg I didn't want too much fat, so asked for no sausages, so rather than reduce the price I was given double the bacon, which is fine, but if I'd been told I would have asked for the normal sized portion of bacon. However, I was offered a half size breakfast, although I don't know the cost. Perhaps some different versions to the full English would be nice, one without the bacon and sausages (or a vegetarian version). As before the service was very nice and...

Stay away at all costs!! Filthy! Filthy! Filthy! The nonchalant staff here have no idea of the concept of food hygiene nor do they care about it. Whilst sitting inside this restaurant, we watched four different members of staff serve the public ice creams from the side entrance. One staff member was emptying the dustbin when an unfortunate member of the public came walking by. Watching her emptying the bins and taking out the trash and then serving ice cream cornets without washing her hands or using napkins to handle the cornets, we all felt sick to our stomach having been served lunch by the same member of staff. Two other staff members were licking their fingers prior to handling the cornets (again without gloves or napkins) and the fourth was handling all the previous customers dirty plates etc and never washed her hands. Given that ALL the waiting staff clearly had no care for food safety or hygiene, this has to be systemic of extremely poor management. You have to ask yourself, if ALL the waiting staff openly show a lack of food safety and hygiene.... What is happening to your food when it is being prepared without you seeing it. Avoid this place like the plague..... before you...