The Allotment Café — Restaurant in Tameside

Drove 30 minutes to visit today as we had heard good things and the menu online looked good. On arrival the waitress listed around 5 dishes that was not available on the menu (this is a lot considering it’s not a huge menu). Luckily she didn’t say eggs Benedict was unavailable as this is what I travelled for, however this was not on the menu given to us, but eggs royale was, I don’t eat fish so I politely asked to swap the salmon for bacon (as other dishes had bacon on), I got a blunt ‘No’, which was very confusing so we questioned it and she said due to ‘ratios’ of food in the kitchen (considering they didn’t have half of the menu, out of good will they should have honoured the change to keep the custom). I asked for a few moments to decide what else I wanted to eat as the waitress was hovering over me and I felt under pressure. She went inside and told her colleagues that we had ‘upset’ her, all because we asked why we couldn’t swap, we wasn’t rude about it we just didn’t understand how a small change could not be made. Then another team member came over and quite rudely asked what we wanted, so again we asked her if we could swap the salmon for bacon, she also said no, so I asked if I could have it without the salmon and add bacon to which she also said no and followed with ‘the chef has created the dishes and he wants to make it as it is on the menu’ and I said ‘I don’t eat fish’ and she then responded with ‘you’s don’t have to eat here if yous don’t want it’. We said that the menu online says eggs Benedict and her response was that the person that does the website has been on holiday and been ill, didn’t really seem believable. Extremely poor customer service, as you can imagine at this point we were highly frustrated with the attitude, her tone of voice was also disgusting. She then said we upset her team member which again we was confused why it was so dramatic when we was not rude to her, we just asked a simple swap question. If it was an allergy or food intolerance would they not cater for this either? As that’s the dish the chef has created, sorry but he’s not invented eggs royale so no need for the drama. I don’t understand how if I order a dish, I am not allowed to have something removed if I don’t eat it?? I was willing to pay extra for the bacon as it’s an optional extra on the sandwiches so the ‘ratio’ wouldn’t be out of proportion, they’d of just had some extra salmon in the kitchen. We had enough of her attitude towards us so we got up and left without touching our drinks, she went inside and loudly called us weirdo’s to which I then got angry and shouted at her, she came back outside and started shouting with me infront of all the customers. Never have I encountered this sort of service from any restaurant, such a shame as the location is lovely, just no people skills in the slightest and the menu (that isn’t online) is...

I've been to the Allotment Cafe 4 seperate times over the past 12 months. Each time has been impressive.

The most striking aspect is the eclectic menu. It changes with the seasons and is so refreshing to see the staples that people go out for (full English, burger etc) but also completely new ideas such as their take on a butternut squash risotto and their famous root veg sandwich. This doesn't stop at food either as they have the staple drink choices such as cappuccino, flat whites etc but also specials such as matcha, beetroot, turmeric latte among others.

The setting and atmosphere is really lovely. Everyone is friendly and if you have any allergies, intolerances they are understanding and can amend any recipe to suit your needs. Speaking with the chef Rory afterwards he actually said he enjoys doing this! They have great choice for vegan too for both sweet and savoury. It isn't like a chain coffee shop where they have one option. They treat intolerance and allergies as equal to somebody without any requirements.

It is great to have such a good independent place like this and I'd always choose it over any chain on skill alone.

Also the portions are absolutely massive too and is actually much cheaper than I'm...

Don’t bother unless for cake.

I’m not sure what’s happened to the place but it’s really gone downhill. Change in owner I’m told? Service was shoddy to say the least, served by the Aussie girl, who took a good 20 minutes to remember my drink and I repeated cappuccino to her 3 times and she still asked if I wanted a latte…. The chef (if you can call him that) couldn’t even make my girlfriend’s toastie right, burnt on the inside, with cheese that wasn’t melted? I opted for a full English, the sausages were nice and that’s where it ends I’m afraid. More grease than the musical. We did get given free cake as an apology for the disaster service, which was one of the nicest brownies I’ve had in a long time, and the only thing worth paying for.

Defo wouldn’t recommend I’m afraid, unless you’re going...