Cool Beans Café — Restaurant in Torridge District

This is a cute looking, large, stylishly interior designed cafe in the centre of Bideford. The menu is extensive and well curated. It has a welcoming outside/pavement seating area ( I'm not sure about the stained old sofa dumped by the litter bin, but not really their fault) and I do like the subtle retro music theme. However, a few things could be improved to take it from ok to great. Admittedly, my daughter and I went for a very late lunch on a Saturday, about 3.30pm, so maybe not the best time to judge the food. I ordered a tuna sandwich, which was good, but the side salad had seen better days...if you only have wilted lettuce and bone dry, bendy cucumber, just don't serve it! The cappuccino was bitter/burnt, my daughters vanilla milkshake had way too much syrup in it and was served spilt all over its saucer. Her bacon sandwich was excellent though. I know I should have complained at the time, but the two teenage girls left in charge seemed distracted and obviously counting the minutes until closing time. I know owners can't run cafes like this all the time, but maybe a bit of further training of junior staff would avoid the business being...

Having spotted thw cafe on previous visits my friend took me here due to my being known to say "cool beans" as an affirmation of good things, unfortunately we would be hard pressed to have many good things to say about our experience at Cool Beans Cafe.

The tea and coffee was decent but the food was at best needing serious work.

We ordered a baguette each, which were part bake ones from a shop, which wouldn't have been an issue if they were actually baked, I ordered a granary baguette but neither of the ghostly white, stodgy numbers we were both presented with were granary.

We also ordered some falafel to share and were presented with rather concerning bright/deep green "balls" which had a every so slightly crispy exterior and playdough interior much like dired out playdough, whixh somehow managed to adhere to the teeth and with disturbingly strong aniseed flavour that lingered for the afternoon, served with "vegan" dips which judging by the explosive diarrhea were...

You won't be disappointed! For once I had time to sit down for lunch in town and wanted to visit a local cafe rather than a chain. Its been a long time since I've really walked through the town so this is the first time I've come across Cool Beans. Very covid aware and secure. Lots of lovely outside seating as well as inside options. Great menu full of tempting treats. We went for cream cheese and cucumber sandwich which as you can see in the picture came with coleslaw, salad and crisps. We also tried the chocolate mess crepe, and a cappuccino with butterscotch syrup. Wow. The food was fresh and tasty. Honestly it was faultless. The crepe was decadent and fabulous, my 7 year olds eyes nearly popped out lol she loved it! Awesome coffee full of flavour. Lovely interior, toilet for customers and dogs welcome and very friendly staff. Well worth a visit, we will certainly be back ASAP....