Hive Coffee Company — Restaurant in South Tyneside

Due to the Covid-19 situation, I purchased my elderly parents a £20.00 voucher from Hive Coffee Company. This was their treat to celebrate their Wedding Anniversary, as my Dad is over 80yrs and in the 'shielding' category. However, when my Mam rang to place their order for delivery, she was told that the voucher could only be used on the premises and that they were closed at the minute and they didn't know when they were going to reopen. I then rang Hive, to explain my parents' situation and I was advised that they couldn't accept the voucher at the door as the voucher needed to be 'signed off' against the order on the premises. How ludicrous! When I was trying to find out why they' couldn't possibly' deliver to my parents' door, as they had proof of my online purchase, the employee was continually talking over the top of me - eagerly wanting to offer me a refund, rather than having to come up with simple way around - accepting that the voucher had been paid for and delivering what should've been a delightful afternoon treat to an elderly, shielding, couple. Hive Coffee Company might be a young, fledgling business but they have a lot to learn about providing excellent...

After seeing the Instagram posts and previous reviews we were really excited to try this place out but we were left disappointed.

The staff are lovely and friendly and we were greeted and shown to our seats and given a menu. The menu has some great looking items but I like to test a place on its basics so I went for a sausage sandwich with hash browns. The food came out quickly but when looking at the hash browns the exterior was soggy and wet and inside was dry. I don't know if these were microwaved or left to sit but they were not the freshly fried and crispy texture that I expect of a hash brown. The bun was dry so I added some ketchup and went to take my first bite to find the butter hidden under the sandwich which explains why it was dry however I had already added my ketchup at this point so putting it under the sandwich seems like a strange thing to do.

For a drink I went with the bee pollen latte which was delicious and I have no complaints with at all.

So over all, the staff are lovely, they do great coffee, but I won't be going back again as there are much better...

Arrived at 11:20am to see if I could get lunch for 2 hungry kids - when we arrived there was no queue and plenty of free tables so we sat down.

After a few mins to get the kids sorted, I realised there were no menus so I politely asked a member of staff for one - she then asked me if I had 'checked in' at the desk on the way in, to which I said no and that I didn't realise I needed to, the sign that notifies this was obscured by a staff member when we'd come in.

At this point she became very angry at me and demanded that we vacate the table we had sat down immediately because it was booked for someone else (even though the sign on the table said it was booked from 1pm, plenty of time).

She then insisted that we go to the BACK of a long queue that had now formed at the entrance with both kids. She also suggested we might prefer to get food to takeaway instead!

She then proceeded to follow me back to the table, closely watched me as I got both kids ready, to make sure we left immediately.

I was shocked by this experience and would never come back again if this is how they...