Sparrow Coffee House — Restaurant in Wales

Came for a quick breakfast with my wife this morning for the first time only to be disappointed on several levels unfortunately, both coffees ware served pretty but stone cold, after my wife brought them back they came back scalding hot like it was done on purpose or something, I suggest milk thermometers and a temperature of between 65 and 75 degrees for all coffees. We order toast because the variety of options is extremely slim and it’s down to a almond croissant, a pain au chocolat e little more, the toast was served in two instalments and we ware told that the toaster only has the capacity for one toast at the time (…) when the second half of toast arrived, half of it landed on the floor but that’s ok, stuff like that can happen (…) we also order a pain au chocolat and a almond croissant and this one was so hard and stale that I could barely cut it in half and of course I didn’t even dare to try it, we decided to go and when I told the guy there (presumably the manager/owner) he lied to my face and tried to tell me that it was freshly baked this morning??? Seriously mate? That croissant was several days old and they didn’t even tried to warm it to make it puffier… anyway I didn’t wanted to cause any trouble but I wasn’t even offered a refund but I left as I didn’t wanted to make a scene, in my opinion another hipster wannabe coffeeshop with pretentious and very poor quality coffee and worse even service but I must be wrong judging by all the “positive feedbacks”, I let you judge by yourselves.

I’m editing my review as I also need to respond publicly to your response on my initial review. I did said I did not even try the croissant but I can tell you and like I said to your manager, I’ll stake my reputation on it, that that croissant was not fresh and no I don’t need to eat it it’s enough to go at it with a knife over and over again just to be able to split it in half, I don’t know if that was on your supplier or on you nor do I care but It was not fresh and that is a fact. As for you standing 100% behind the integrity of your staff, I appreciate that you do but does that include the staff members giving my establishment a 1* review without ever even setting foot on the cafe? Because that is what happened after my review and that was out of spite and unprofessional behaviour and the only reason you and your staff know who I am and that I have a cafe in Cardiff Bay, is because I engaged your staff in a friendly conversation and shared that information with them witch is now being use to punish my righteous opinion as a paying customer. Lastly please do not bother coming into my cafe or try to reimburse me as it now comes out of time and I do not warrant it, you should apologise for the behaviour of your staff member reviewing my cafe without even ever setting foot on it, I do not owe anyone any apology. I wish nothing but good luck to your cafe and all...

I'm about to move into the area and I've been so excited to make Sparrow my local coffee shop - I've been in there before and really enjoyed. However, my friend and I visited Sparrow today with our kids and I was really disappointed by the experience.

My son is two and a half and was playing with a toy train along the edge of the coffee table - with his back in the aisle to the kitchen. A staff member advised me to keep my eye on him because of hot drinks passing by. I said I would. Then he crossed the aisle to speak to a couple who were asking questions about his train, and he started to run the train over their sofa. I believe that they seemed comfortable with this and seemed to find it cute. The staff member returned and said I had to have my son with me (he was about four feet away.....) at all times because of their liability.

I picked him up and returned him to our sofa but he started to get narky...I imagine because he was enjoying talking to the adults on the other table. A little while later he crawled under the table and started to run across the coffee shop. I was following him when the staff member caught me and told me off again about my son. I said to him something like, "what does it look like I'm doing?" Because I was delayed by this staff member I was late in catching my son and he'd began to stroke a dog. The dog owner looked uncomfortable and they informed me that the dog was "bitey" and I obviously removed my son. I felt awful because I would have intercepted my son if I hadn't had to speak to the member of staff.

After that I felt incredibly uncomfortable and unwanted in the cafe. I tried to make the best of it as my friend had ordered a coffee for her and a babychino for her daughter as well as a toastie and two cakes. My son settled down but he was still playing with his train and every time he went around the other side of the coffee table I felt like I move him away. I'm not usually that sort of a parent and he was getting more and more upset. He ended up having a meltdown on the floor as my friend packed up our stuff - all he wanted was to have a wander around. In the past week we've been to Coffee #1 on Albany Road, Amgueddfa Cymru in Cathays, a library and a restaurant - he's enjoyed all of them and there haven't been any issues. It was totally to do with the hostile atmosphere created at Sparrow.

Very inconguous with the "breastfeeding welcome" sign in the window and the babychinos advertised for sale. If you want to be more of a grown-up coffee bar...

Visited Cardiff and came here for a takeaway coffee on Thurs 21 Aug 2025 ( we try to support independent shops as much as we can). The inside is very welcoming. We were served very quickly but the cappuccino we ordered was warm and not hot enough for our liking - when I stated this I was rudely told that it was made to the correct temperature and that they could not reheat it. I was made to feel as if I was asking for something extraordinary ( in other cafes, when this has happened before, the server has remade or reheated the drinks). The whole point of ARTISAN is that it is made to the individual customer's preference! Poor service and rude with it - we left very disappointed. Shame as the Cappuccino was very tasty and would have given the cafe all 5 stars were it...