The Ark — Restaurant in Scotland

We make a point of driving down from Dalry just to visit The Ark and the village! It’s a perfect place to eat, drink and sit and watch the world. The changes to the cafe, menu and gift shop over the last year are just making it better and better.) Park at the opposite end of the village and enjoy the walk to The Ark (calling in at the RNLI shop on the way is a must do) Make your stop at The Ark where you will be greeted by the most welcoming of staff, super fresh food with good portions and reasonable prices, even their speciality ice creams are huge! Then carry on your walk to as far as you can go and stop a wee while on the beach (or take the foot path to Rockcliffe) but remember to call back in at The Ark for another cuppa and a sweet treat, and doggy ice cream for the 4paws before you head back to your car. We always leave knowing...

One wonders how it can be possible in a coffee shop that apparently has more staff than customers to take 25 minutes to serve 4 people with drinks and cakes. At one point there were four staff behind the counter discussing in great detail and apparent confusion the 3 orders that they had. The surprising conclusion was to prepare the order taken 10 minutes after ours, then to fulfil part of our order before serving another table. My coffee, an obviously complicated mocha, took 25 minutes to arrive, a good 5 minutes after the remainder of our order had arrived. To be fair, the coffee was good, the cakes were lovely, but the service abysmal. No-one seemed to know what they were doing, and there was no-one obviously in charge. The staff, who did seem really nice, did apologise, but that somewhat...

Arrived here at 11.45 to have a sandwich and cuppa but was told the light bites menu wasn't available until 12. Another 4 people came in and were told the same. We had a coffee and left, what a shame, this nice cafe lost the revenue from lunches for 6 people because they couldn't relax their rigid timetable. We were handed the light bite menu at 12 but left as a matter of principal, the other 4 people had scones as they were all hungry but were also handed the light bite menu at 12 and also left after they had eaten them. Surely it would have been better to serve light lunches a bit earlier to get the money into such a small establishment. The jobsworth...