Tu Hwnt I'r Bont Tearooms — Restaurant in Wales

I will start out by saying that I am sure it is difficult to run a business under the pressure of being such an iconic location. I myself had been wanting to visit this tea house for years before I did this weekend on my birthday during a special trip with my friends to Wales to celebrate the occasion. But, the whole time I kept thinking that Gordon Ramsay needed to come and help put this tea house on the proper track. The whole experience was chaotic, and everyone in the restaurant seemed stressed and unhappy, like they didn’t know what was going on.

To ensure we had a table, I called over a week in advance to make a reservation. A young man answered and gave me a reservation. The day of our visit I called first thing when they opened as I couldn’t remember exactly what time I made the reservation (it’s all by phone so there was no Email confirmation). They told me there was nothing in the books, but they had availability at 12:30pm. I said that’s fine. We stayed in a town a little over an hour away and had misjudged the time to leave and navigate to the tea house safely. We called on the way to let them know we were running 15-20 minutes late. They said since we were running late they could no longer accommodate us. No bother; we moved the reservation to 3:30pm and explored in the local area until then. At 3:30pm, we arrived and were told we were meant to have arrived at 12:30pm. We said yes, but we called on the way and they rescheduled us. Suddenly I understood why their reservation system was so bad, as they were literally writing reservations by hand on notes at the register. As we were waiting to be seated, we saw an employee serving cake by putting it in their hands with no gloves. The last table inside that was clearly meant for us had been given to a woman minutes before we arrived, so there was no space for us inside. The poor girl at the register looked like she was panicking, so I said that’s okay we can sit outside. We went around back to the picnic tables and I immediately put my hand in bird poop upon sitting down. The tables and area outside was dirty, but to be fair the inside wasn’t as charming as I had anticipated either. There was one toilet outside that was damp and needed a proper cleaning too. At our picnic table, we sat waiting for some time before someone came to ask if we were okay and we said we would like to order. They sent a young boy to come take our order. Several of his friends came by at one point on bikes shouting for him as well. After we ordered, a couple of the things we ordered weren’t available. For example, we got to the end of our meal and asked where our scones were and they said they had run out. We ordered cake for my birthday as we were leaving and they said they would substitute the scones for the cake, which was fair but they didn’t offer it to begin. The food was okay, with the best thing being the chocolate cake (it was so moist!). I popped into the front at the last minute to grab a greeting card, which didn’t have a price. After shouting back and forth several times to figure out the price and how to use the register, they finally rung me up. One card was nearly £7!

Overall, the experience was disappointing, especially for someone who had been wanting to visit for years. I feel the owners are riding the coat tails of the building’s heritage, but need to put significantly more effort into managing the place properly, as well as organizing, cleaning, and decorating. It wasn’t the birthday tea experience I was hoping for, but at least it’s something I can laugh about...

We made a special visit to this tea room during our North Wales trip, we drove 3 and half hours here which was a over an hour away from where we were staying! We booked for afternoon tea as is advised on the website as it gets busy, We entered the building and the atmosphere was palpable, a girl approached and I said we had booked in for afternoon tea she offered a table, didn't offer any menus and then sauntered off! Nothing bad at this point except the terrible atmosphere!!! She came back, sat next to me??? and went "What do you want?" She uttered this sentence with nothing but attitude, and I said afternoon tea as she knew this as I said when we first arrived. Her :"You don't book here and you don't book afternoon tea, as it's ALL made FRESH to order" I asked her why she was giving me attitude and she said she wasn't...I would hate to see what she is like when she is. I also explained I didn't know how things worked here and that the girl I booked with didn't explain any of this and she went "That's not my fault" at this point she has turned her back and walked away and I said " It isn't mine either" and she said "I didn't say it was" the whole time with her back to me is this how anybody should behave, let alone in a customer facing role. She then left without my order and sent the boy over who was dressed like he was about to play football and looked incredibly grubby, I remarked on the girls attitude and he said "That's how it is here", this is such a deep rooted situation that he just expects it and when I said "Well it shouldn't be" he seemed completely taken aback...then all of a sudden a woman who can only be described as Miss Trunchball came out and demanded a word with the boy. She then came back to our table with a face of thunder and kitchen clothes that should have been thrown away in the 80s (They were filthy, and how anyone with any pride would wear those around customers, EWWW) and asked what we wanted her attitude no better than the girl...why we didn't leave is beyond me as the whole experience was ruined and to top it off she definitely gave us rolls instead of bread just to be mean to us as a table who came after had sandwiches with proper bread...the rolls were awful. The scones weren't much better either and we just wanted to leave!

Miss Trunchball walked around the whole time scowling and looked at customers like they were a massive inconvenience to her, if you don't like the industry get out as you are running this place into the ground....if you think tourists will keep coming because it is pretty you are delusional. Bad reviews will impact. Also the place was filthy.

As we were leaving oddly all the staff were sitting out back, and then I realised they were watching for us to go and talking...all the while people were inside waiting to be served....actually making a mockery out of people right in front of them, there were also more queuing at the door!

So to all who consider visiting DON'T. Get a picture from the other side of the bridge and go elsewhere Pale Hall, Penmaenuchaf Hall etc don't waste your money, time or...

TLDR: Take your picture and just go. The food isn’t worth the atrocious service from inexperienced staff and no leadership skills from the manager. STORY TIME: We were a party of nine at different outdoor tables because they couldn’t sit us all together indoors. Fair enough. Outdoor tables are on the opposite side of the building where you have to order. Fair enough. We had three families ordering separately. My aunt and her family got their food and drink minus the scones because we were told the scones will come after the main dishes. Fair enough. My family got three out of the five dishes we ordered and two out of the three drinks we ordered. No scones served yet. Our family friends got one out of the two dishes they ordered as well as one of the two drinks they ordered. Once again no scones. After waiting for over an hour, we went over to ask about the rest of our order. They said that they had already served it all. We explained what was missing and the what looked like the manager told the other staff to write down what was missing so that they can serve it. One out of the three dishes were served as well as one of the scones that was ordered. When my dad’s sandwich and my tea and scone was still not served, I came over to ask for it to be put in a takeaway box instead cause we still had to travel after this supposed short lunch stop. The staff said that they had already served everything already. So I brought my receipts and showed which items were missing. The staff said they’d have to check the cctv because they said they definitely already served everything but that they will give us what we said was missing. Fair enough. and they did. Minus one scone so my family friend reminded them to bring out the last one. But then they sent out two staff to argue with us that they had already served all the four scones in an accusatory tone, and that it’s only their specials that they serve scones with, which we ordered. They can clearly check the table for how many they served because they serve scones in red plates and main dishes in blue. There were only two red plates and my one takeaway scone. They asked for our receipts, which i handed over and the staff went back in the kitchen and we could see them speaking. I overheard one of the staff shouting in the kitchen “well I don’t know which table it was meant to go” Our family friend was really upset with the manner they addressed this so she went over to Turns out that they didn’t print out our family friend’s order. One of the staff did finally give the scone. None of the managers came to speak with us nor apologised for their mistake. We had patiently waited for an hour. The last dish was served within an...