Dobbies Garden Centres - Royston Reviews 240

Arrived at the cafe and soft play with my 3 year old to have lunch and to burn off some energy.
Went to order lunch and despite it saying 11.30 on the menus, I got told I couldn't order until 12. I ordered a coffee and paid for the soft play to keep my son entertained. The coffee told nearly 30 mins to arrive, by which time I was back in the queue to order food!
I ordered my food and paid for an additional side to go with my main meal. I had to tell the person working that kids eat for free with an adult main meal. I wasn't given a receipt.
Food arrived about 10 mins later (pretty good to be fair) but no side. I told the waitress and she disappeared out the back. She came back another 10 mins later with a ciabatta roll and some butter, so I pointed out it should have been something different and she looked grabbed my soft play receipt and said "well I don't know how it was as it wasn't on your order" and basically walked off and left me with the wrong food.
To make matters worse, there was no manager around to complain to so she gets away with it, but the cafe as a whole will not. Hence my review.
Poor customer care across the board, they should be embarrassed.

Nice couple hours spent browsing around Dobbies garden centre

Staff friendly and helpful, able to get everything we came in for. Enjoyed a very welcome coffee and cake before leaving.

Visited the cafe today at your Melbourn branch. Only hot drinks, cakes and scones available. Wasnt very busy however still took nearly 15mins for 2 pots of tea to arrive and that was after i went back to the till to remind them. Assistant obviously not impressed with this as our tray was almost slammed on the table she told us they were very short staffed (we saw 4 person working there) so not that short staffed. I did say to her that maybe instead of going to the tables and chatting to customers then maybe everyone would get served much quicker. She then told me that was part of her job to be nice to the customers and that the one she had spent time with was a friend of hers. Also why no hot food as this appears to have been going on for some time?

Staff pleasant and polite, products good, disappointed in the resterant no chef no hot food. I ordered two coffees and was told they would be half an hour. We had to go to Bury lane farm for hot food.

My recent visit I came away with what I was looking for.
The staff were knowledgeable, kindly left it by the till, so I had just to pay for it. Excellent plant.
Many thanks.

Have been there twice in a month and both times not doing food only cakes and drinks

Not just a lovely garden centre but also stocks much more. A really nice cafe with a big selection of really nice cakes. A shopping experience to enjoy

Great selection of plants , and helpful staff

I regularly go to Royston garden centre at least once a week and the staff are lovely.

The Dobbies restaurant is a joke. I went there this morning and they are only serving coffee and cake. We asked for gluten free cake and was told no there isn’t anything. There would also be a long wait for a drink and the attitude of the staff is really off putting, they weren’t bothered.

Always helpful and giving advice if you need it

We enjoyed our shopping at Dobbies Some things are very expensive. We were lucky to buy a few things in the sale. I returned to Dobbies on Monday 14th Nov. to get another couple items in the sale luckily I was able to buy the last 2 left on the shelf. But was quite surprised that the Gonks that we bought on the 12th Nov had been put back up to the original prices which I was gob smacked.

Staff helpful.
Nice plants

Lovely coffee and great place to look around.

Got what I wanted at a good price. Friendly and helpful staff. Look forward to the restaurant being fully open.

The Centre has improved a lot with a good selection of things on sale along with the garden centre.

Not sure the find a table … order … then drinks will be brought to you … works very well. I only wanted a coffee z as and this is a rather convoluted system. It took a couple of goes to get what I wanted whereas if I’d been with the barista I would have got it in one. Very very labour intensive too. Goodness knows how it would work if the cafe was busy.

Love the new layout, nice and spacious. Often visit the restaurant with friends.