Tesco Cafe — Restaurant in Wirral

What a shocker! The prices are London prices!! Cannot believe how expensive this in store cafe is. £2 for a small bottle of Fanta…£2.15 for a coke!!!! You can buy a case of 24cans just outside the entrance to cafe for £6…. A hot chocolate was £2.64 and the even charged and extra 50p for a squirt of whipped cream…what a rip off. When you consider how brilliant IKEA and COSTCO cafes are and reasonably priced. A large Ginger biscuit was £1.40 - you can buy 4 full packets for the same price inside the store.

The service was also shocking. 4 staff and one serving…one lady constantly on the look out for people bringing trolleys in the massive wide entrance that has no signs saying “no trolley’s”…all you could hear was a loud “no trolleys allowed in here”…every 3 minutes. A poor young lady with two toddlers was chastised while taking the toddlers out of the trolley!, never seen anything like it before. I was borderline comical!

The cafe drinks server, there was only one doing hot drinks, must of had a bad day. she did not smile once, say hello, goodbye or thank you…. There was a small queue, maybe 4 customers, I had to wait 15 minutes and then to be told that the machine was broken - although they knew this they didn’t tell customers waiting until they ordered… such bad service and management…. They server was not sympathetic or concerned…she also got the guys drink wrong in front of me - he clearly said “no chocolate” on his cappuccino but she put a load on…he pointed this out and she was only too happy to make him another….and then offer the ones he didn’t order to her male colleague….could not believe my eyes. First time in this store and you could not fault the supermarket- just the cafe. Come in guys, sort it out - overpriced and probably over worked staff. I blame...

Would have given one star were it not for the friendly, professional front of shop staff this morning. The staff were excellent and professional as expected, no concerns there.

My issue is with the food. I ordered The Big Breakfast (extra hash brown, extra egg, extra sausage and rasher of bacon), also ordered a pot of tea. I wasn't hungry but figured I could leave what I didn't want. Glad I went big, because it looked no larger than what you'd expect a standard breakfast to be. I very rarely do supermarket cafés, I spent 5yrs working shop floor for Morrisons so I know the lack of enthusiasm and money that goes into each meal. It seems that the same applies to Tesco.

If you were opening a small privately owned café, you'd pour your heart into every meal. I understand massive supermarkets can't be expected to do that. But simply throwing some nice furniture to sit on, doesn't make up for the shortfall in the food quality, if anything, it serves to highlight how poor the food quality really is.

Sausages - very small, tasteless, processed meat. Very poor quality. Beans - standard quality. Hash browns - actually quite nice, enjoyed them. Bacon - could have been nice due to a good meat/fat ratio. Unfortunately, today these had been over cooked and were tough as leather. Fried bread - over cooked and dry. (Also, as this is supposed to be a big breakfast, it's a bit stingy to only offer one slice) Half tomato - small, (again, big breakfast, where's the other half?) Pot of tea - low quality teabags. (A pity, sometimes a lack luster meal can be forgiven and forgotten if you get to finish on a lovely cuppa.)

Today however, I was keen just to leave and put the experience behind me. C'mon Tesco, you can do better than...

This cafe experience sums up the country today. Used to be Okay, but going down hill rapidly. It was Okay in the past. Not been for a while, will never go back again. It is now all automated self service screens. A debacle. Two coffees cost £7. Machine did not take club card. Menu and instructions were nonsensical and difficult to navigate. Took about 10 minutes faffing about. Went today. I'm pretty tech savvy, but others were struggling in the queue. This is not progress. For that price I could of had a Costa experience. Two small pathetic coffees arrived in Plastic cups, no lid. Abysmal. So much so I am taking the time to give an equally abysmal review. Tesco get your act together, your Bidston store is decent, why let your customers down. People want a pleasurable experience after shopping. This was anything but. Bad experience, bad service, vad...