Caffe Cream at Birkenhead Park — Restaurant in Wirral

Big, light, modern, airy building. Popular with mums, kids and prams and .... dogs sitting on chairs..... grrrr! Paws on floors, surely, no?! When it's busy, you might be queuing for a while to order your food. Wasn't a great 'gastronomical' experience to be honest. Ordered the cheese and mushroom toasted sandwich @ £5.50 and a medium hot chocolate. Hot chocolate was OK. I couldn't eat the toasted sandwich as they served me a cheese and ham one. Somewhere between the waitress's shorthand and the kitchen crew's eyesight, my vegetarian option got translated into meat haunches. I have had this experience at other dining establishments when ordering mushroom anything. "M" or whatever they write down becomes piggy wiggy ham, grunt snortly gruntly. When pointed out, it was rectified and the pleasant, young lass who served me was sincere and apologetic. While I waited for the replacement porcine-free version to arrive, checking my receipt, I then discovered that I had been overcharged to boot and for a panini, not a toastie. Flippin heck, quelle comedy 'de erreurs'! There then ensued a very confusing conversation with the same waitress, who assured me that the price board was right and the till was wrong. She said that they were waiting for the till to be updated with the new prices, which statement only made me more confused. The price board stated £5.50, not £6, and yet I had been charged £6 by the naughty till. The waitress then said the paninis were the same price. This was also confusing as there are no paninis mentioned on the price board, but the till prints panini on your receipt. This was getting more and more Tommy Cooper-esque. Waitress eventually had a ping light bulb moment of realisation and went to get me a refund, saying, she'd told the manageress as they hadn't realised and that they had been overcharging everyone. Oooo errr missus. I wasn't annoyed, it was just funny but I don't honestly think I'll be rushing back...

I am sorry that I am the first to review this cafe as it wasn't a good experience at all.

This was my second visit within two weeks and on both occasions I have felt that the cafe has let the lovely Birkenhead park down badly.

On the first visit we queued for 15 minutes to get served, the coffee was tepid, my companion waited 30 mins for her meal but had finished it before my salad arrived! . On the second we waited 30 mins for Paninis, After being offered the wrong meal we eventually got ours, the Panini's hadn't been cooked properly and the contents raw.

There was at least four or five staff on each occasion but only one serving behind the counter, taking the money and orders, making the drinks, serving cakes and sweets.

Will I go there again. No...

Visited yesterday. Staff where friendly and helpful. The food was poor to be honest, it looked nothing like advertised. I had the cheese and red onion toastie, 2 pieces of toasted bread was fine but the filling had gone missing I think, very very minimal cheese and a few pieces of onion. Which made for a very dry tasteless toastie. Not value for money at all I'm sure it was nearly £5 too just for the sandwich. Shocking. The coleslaw had a strong overpowering taste of garlic which was off putting. One good point was the coffee which tasted good and was made well, but that arrived about 5-10 mins after the food!! Really you would expect the drink before the food or at least at...