Bridge House Cafe — Restaurant in Scotland

In summary, the worst breakfast I've ever ordered! Overpriced, stingy and luke warm. One egg, one tattie scone, one sausage, one slice of toast and half a raw tomato for ten quid (the photo tells the entire sad story). We both left still feeling hungry, which is the opposite of what you'd have hoped from a cooked breakfast - we ended up stopping at the Bothy in Braemar afterwards as we were still hungry (wish we'd went here for breakfast instead and can highly recommend here as an alternative to Bridge House!!). No beans or mushrooms, and excluding the toast that you'd expect as standard with any breakfast, there were only three and a half items on the plate! A pack of six tattie scones is 90p, box of six eggs £1.50, four pack of veggie lorne sausage is £2.25, six pack of tomatoes 85p and a loaf of bread £1.60 from the supermarket - so one egg, one tattie scone, one sausage, one slice of toast and half a tomato adds up to about £1.22. I know we're in an cost of living crisis but who is suffering from this the most? Certainly not the Bridge House Cafe, and definitely the customer. To top it off, it was luke warm. My friend also had one of their fancy hot chocolates - watery and tasteless. Ultimately, this place is all style and no substance. I, however, cannot fault the waiting staff who were the only saving grace as they were all lovely and this is clearly a management issue (if management say otherwise then it only highlights that management are the issue). You have to order at the till and so we had already paid by the time our food arrived, which is very sneaky of management as I would not have paid for this if I hadn't already! The staff were lovely and we didn't want to further ruin our experience by having to have an uncomfortable conversation with them about the management's decision to offer up such stingy portions for their breakfasts. I actually left feeling ashamed, knowing that so many tourists pass through Ballater and this pathetic breakfast is the impression visitors will have of a "full" veggie Scottish breakfast. Needless to say, we...

I was absolutely astonished by the rudeness of the male staff member working today and to be honest it totally ruined our experience. I didn't realise the food on the menu was pre-made so asked for a baguette with 3 ingredients not realising it would be a problem. When the young girl at the til advised me that they didn't have what I asked for, I asked if it was possible to have it made it and she said no which is fine. I then asked what did they have available for vegetarians thinking that because they were pre-made they might not have everything available as it was getting later on in the day. She asked the gentleman making the food what was available for vegetarians and he walked away while mumbling something under his breath, went through the back, and then shouted through ITS ALL ON THE MENU in a disgruntled way. I was so taken aback. Talk about good customer service during the festive period wow. The poor girl at the til had to then apologise for his behaviour after seeing how I had not taken kindly to his rudeness.

The food is fine. Nothing special. Very limited menu and very overpriced for what it is. Had my Dad not been extremely hungry I would have walked out after being spoken to like that. I am all for supporting local small business but there's absolutely no way I would return. The customer service was lacking throughout. Watching the female server interact with other customers she also appeared irked by the existence of people in the cafe. Perhaps if you don't like the general public your business shouldn't be based on providing a...

Subjective? Perhaps but we were not alone in our experience today. My daughter met the mother of a family of six - eating by the window - in the Ladies who, bemoaning the cleanliness of the bathrooms, shared our thoughts on both the food and service. We did follow the lunchtime rush, admittedly, but there were no baked potatoes and little choice of vegetarian paninis. However, it was the attitude of the older woman which irked. My son is gluten-free and, eventually, it was agreed that they would make him up a panini/toastie. Happy to wait - but not that long - two paninis were brought (£9.95 each) on plates filled with non-descript crisps and the most basic of salads. The gluten-free one? Whoops! They made a mistake - after 15 minutes - and would make one up! Five minutes later, the same plate of cheap crisps and salad arrived with a tiny toasted sandwich - the END of the loaf? Filling? Apologies for pieces of chicken and bacon! To serve up THAT at a cost of £8! Aware of our feelings, it was clear that our table was avoided ...

In summary? A bad day? Perhaps but the cost of mediocre food and service is prohibitive. Remember, we were not alone in...