The Cottage Kitchen Country Cafe — Restaurant in Staffordshire Moorlands

Every time we travel south we stop here for something - coffee tea, cakes, lunch. We always find an excuse. The food and service is so good we have to stop on the return journey too. We use this route to bypass Birmingham and the M6 en route from Lancs to Bucks. Originally part of Cottage Delight who make preserves and other wonderful things, it now receives the full-time attention of the founder of that company. The menu is good wholesome dishes and there are always some specials on the balckboard. Prices are reasonable but not cheap. Sedrvice is prompt and attentive. It can get busy, especially at lunch times and on our last trip we had to wait for a table on both the out and return journey. What really tests a restaurant is how it copes with the untoward, not the run-of-the-mill and here we were impressed. When our luches came last week, mine was cold. I presume it had waited for my wife's dish and that had taken longer than expected. As soon as I informed the waitress, it was whopped away with the promise of a hot replacement. A few minutes later, the waitress returned to assure me that a new one was being prepared and it duly arrived piping ot and with apologies. At no point did I feel uncomfortable or anuisance. I should add that this is the only problem we have had in dosens of visits over the last...

I wasn’t very impressed with my first visit. The food wasn’t very nice, but I was starving and I hate wasting food, so I ate most of it. My mum had a scone that was absolutely vile, The chips were rock hard and covered in grease and so was my burger, Which was really disappointing. The pudding, however, was lovely.

Unfortunately, the service let the experience down. The staff were very slow to bring the bill and spent a lot of time standing around chatting rather than serving customers. Their customer service skills were quite poor overall, although some of the young girls were okay.

My mum and I also noticed one of the ladies behind the counter touching chips without gloves and then scratching her ear, which was unhygienic and off-putting. The tables were very cramped, with hardly any room to eat. I kept hitting my arm on the chair next to me, which made it quite uncomfortable. The toilets were also messy, with paper all over the floor, which didn’t leave a good impression.

It’s a shame, as the place looks lovely from the outside and they have a nice little shop inside too. Having worked in hospitality myself, I know what good service and hygiene standards look like, and sadly this visit fell well below...

This really should be 5 star but honestly they are not doing themselves favours hiring young staff that don't care . They attempted to make 2 lattes twice, both sent back and we ended up opting for tea. While the lattes were hot, the coffee tasted like they had reused coffee grounds or not cleaned out the machine properly. The young girl was tapping the used grounds into a bin lightly and not ensuring that it was clean of used grounds. The second attempt was to just add one shot of coffee and add lots of milk, Lol.. The supervisor did sort it out and we did see them cleaning coffee machine out later on. I can't stress enough that hiring trained barristas and serving well made coffee can make and break businesses.

They were prompt in sorting out issues and handled the situation well. The food was hot and delicious.

My other peeve; Placing a family with 2 toddlers (one mid tantrum, in the table next to us, where every one else there were older couples eating quietly. This was despite having another area to use but they chose to close that part of the cafe off and start cleaning it!

It doesn't take much to spoil the atmosphere and they should be more observant about customers space and enjoyment...