Dobbies Garden Centres - Atherstone Reviews 576

Went today for a festive afternoon tea with my daughter. We had booked for 1:30. Were seated reasonably promptly then ignored. After 30 minutes my daughter went and joined the queue to buy two drinks. Found a member of staff and explained that we had not been served yet. She apologised and ten minutes later brought our food. She did bring us some chips by way of apology. We then requested drinks. 70 minutes after we had arrived and we still didn’t have the drinks we had paid for we left and asked for takeaway drinks. These were given to us and also additional cake. The member of staff was very apologetic and I could see that the restaurant was very understaffed at a busy time, however I would not repeat the experience or recommend it to anyone else.

Brilliant products let down by lack of staff on tills and I’ve never managed to get through the tills within 10 minutes, this time was a classic , till packed up so assistant just went to another till and left us they’re to wonder what was going on and then join the till she had moved to which had now filled with customers in front of us ,

Plenty of selection of Christmas trees and a wonderful assistant who advised, helped and took the tree to our car. Top marks
Had a lovely cherry scone from under your glass dome. Best to avoid the ones in the open baskets as they dry out quickly and become hard. Not sure the person who makes them will be happy so suggest you go back to putting them under their domes as you used to.

Santa’s grotto experience was wonderful, the elves were very welcoming and took their time with our kids. And Santa was also brilliant, it didn’t feel rushed and kids loved it.

I have frequented Dobbies Garden Centres for many years and happily spent an awful lot of money with them, however the Atherstone store has had a marked drop is service and care in recent times.
The cafe is atrocious set out in such a way that you can have either hot food or drinks but not at the same time due to lack of staffing and immediate food service followed by a stupidly long queue for coffee whilst your dinner cools on the tray.
However even worse than this on our last three visits there have been issues around unclearly marked offers (feed for £1 a bottle if you spend so much but no notification that this is limited to 1 per person) ill informed staff (advising 50% of a reduced item when asked only to discover at the till it was actually 7.5%) and finally yesterday 23/11/23 I located a Yankee candle in the Black Friday deal for £12 only to be informed at the till that this was actually £22. Having been at the shelf with my father and there being multiple of this particular candle the first member of staff checked and said they were in the wrong place. I asked for a manager as this as you can see has become a common occurrence. When the “manager” arrived with no name on her badge she claimed there were only two of this candle on there and must have been placed by a customer. There were many of this candle on the shelf yet she insinuated I was a liar. As a wheelchair user I am used to certain people treating me as less than proficient mentally however this particular manager was frankly just rude. At this point because she had no interest in my complaint I requested she cancel my Dobbies club membership and reimburse my remaining months only for her to shrug and say they are no able to do that.
Unfortunately they seem unable to do anything for their customers anymore. I have spent an awful lot of money over the years well aware that they are overpriced but happy to pay for service and quality, both of which no longer exist within this company.

Sadly we have used the “proper” complaints procedure, myself once regarding a home delivery that arrived upside down and my father once for the poor quality of the (let’s be honest and call it what it is) second rate canteen. In neither case have the company bothered to get back to us.

Would not recommend.

Further to the above (please see response below) Dobbies have replied to suggest following their complaints proces. All very well and good except had they bothered to read it they would see I have attempted this three times in addition to speaking to a manager.

Dobbies you do not respond to your own process which is why I reviewed on here!

Excellent advice from the information desk so we knew where to look for what we wanted straight away.

My big gripe is with the restaurant. Always huge queues not enough staff and disorganised and has been for some time. Also the staff are not the most welcoming either. I'm a club member but I have to say the benefits are not the same as they once were.

On my last visit there were not enough staff serving. I waited 10 mins to be served with cake. In the end I decided to have scones because I could help myself to them. The Christmas scones were really tasty.
Staff were very friendly as they always are.

Found what I needed with ease great variety

There was not enough staff working in the restaurant my food was brought out while I was still waiting in the queue for my drinks not going back there again I would advise anybody not to use the restaurant

Not impressed by staff serving drinks
Staff member knew the customer, extra cream and marshmallows on her drink
The same was not given to
any other customer
But paid the same price

Visited Atherstone today..clean, tidy. Very christmassy. Very busy in restaurant. Would be useful not to have to wait in a very long queue for hot meals, when you only want a coffee and cake, especially when there is a designated area for coffees that is closed/unstaffed. !

The staff were lovely and the Christmas decorations really surprised our grandchildren

Got what we needed an was easy to park up

The hot drinks service was so slow that the hot lunch I'd bought in the restaurant was not over warm by the time I hot to eat it. The meal was good value and the cake delicious.

friendly staff always willing to help - good choice of items all around the store

Really well set out into different zones. Staff helpful lovely restaurant and we were able to take the dog too which was great on a wet day.

Went to Atherstone yesterday after a long absence. Store generally has deteriorated . We had drinks and cake in restaurant and was served by a woman who was complaining to everyone about how rubbish her job is and the length of her shifts.she was half hearted in the way she served my husband’s Luke warm half cup of hot chocolate and a very poor advocate for the company. We won’t be returning - Rugby is far better