Used to be great but now everything is cardboard and food and drink is over zapped in microwave making it far to hot to handle. Awful experience. I hope this is temporary whilst the works are taking place.
Mousey Mouse
Really disappointed with the visit today. Whilst recognising these are temporary changes, the service was appalling. The food was "cremated" and when spoken to the staff attitude wss 'couldn't give a damn'. Really sad the changes will not keep the atmosphere it once had.
Chris J
The garden centre has stock control problems and poor training. Looking for a pair of wellies they only had size 12, and no other sizes. Which means they've completely run out and have not got systems in place to replace other sizes - £20.00 lost to the business. Then three of us went into the cafe for a drink and cake. For some reason only one person can make coffee and the other two people are their to just stand and watch. It wasn't busy yet having already waited 5mins for our drinks I asked how long they'd be... we were still three orders down the queue. And I couldn't work out why two people were just standing around and couldn't make hot drinks - and the one who could was also making hot sandwiches - a training gap seems to be the obvious answer. So I cancelled the two hot drinks as we didn't have time to wait around and we wanted to have them with our cakes. £7.00 refunded. Total missed revenue for Lowdens - £27.00. Cake sales - £9.00. So Lowdens lost two thirds of their revenue from me due to poor stock control and poor training. Which gave a poor experience, did repetitional damage, and has led to this review. So arguably the loss to Lowdens is somewhat higher than the £27.00 of actual revenue.
C KM
For your gardening needs, Lowden has a vast variety of plants, trees, flowers and shrubs.However, the visit to Lowden as a coffee and cake catch-up meeting place was a rather underwhelming experience and not one to repeat.The Woodshed café serves hot drinks in disposable cups and cake in paper bags and cardboard boxes. Not sure why? It certainly isn't easy to eat cake from a box. Maybe they recycle them? It seems such a waste of resources.The hot drinks and food are not bought to your table, you have to listen out for your name to be called. This is not an ideal scenario in a busy and rather noisy environment. The rock cake looked more like a squashed scone and was quite dry. The carrot cake was okay but not noteworthy in any way.As it was cold, the wood burner was on, which made the café warm but not too warm (the cold crept in through the various entrances/exits). The smoke from the wood burner also gave the cafe a very woody odour, which then permeates your hair and clothes (and also gave me a stinking headache).In summary, Lowden is great for plants but not for food and drinks.
Jill Campbell
Over for breakfast....up grading, great breakfast as usual but could have been hotter cold plates
Sue Basson
The lamb flatbread was lovely but the beef bourginon was Luke warm. Should have been served hot but even the plate had not been warmed so had to send back. Second attempt still not hot enough. Although the restaurant was not busy and had sufficient staff the service was slow. Had to wait 20-30 mins for dessert Although they were both delicious.
chris_debian
Always good customer service from Sarah and the crew, tried out The Woodshed today, that was serving as on overflow to the main restaurant. It has higher chairs, and sockets and USB charging.
Gemma Cunningham
We are never disappointed when we come here for lunch. We have been on several occasions and each time the food has been amazing. It’s very reasonably priced in comparison to other local garden centres and the food is of way better quality. The coffee is wonderful and the whole vibe of the restaurant is cool but quaint. Staff are always attentive and friendly. The garden centre and gift shop is also lovely. A huge range of indoor decor and lovely traditional children’s toys. A little bit expensive but you get what you pay for.
gary lewis
A very impressive garden centre both in size and layout. Has various eateries. The food was lush. Will def go again.
Em_in_Bath
I’m reasonably local - I’ve visited on numerous occasions- mostly breakfast. I love the setting, full of plants and trees and log fires. Breakfast is excellent quality as you’d hope from a farm shop; great sausages , bacon and lovely coffee additionally. Staff I’ve found d are always friendly even if busy. Note that it’s not table service but I don’t think this detracts from the overall experience. Great garden centre to have a look around afterwards with lots of tempting buys. Couldn’t recommend enough!
My husband and I had a lovely Roast Beef lunch here on the Thursday before Christmas. The Beef was well cooked, lovely and tender. It was served with a huge, delicious Yorkshire Pud, 5 Roasties, several Parsnips and good size bowl of Veg. Carrots and Red Cabbage were cooked perfectly. Our only compliant was the Brussels, which were very undercooked... and that's coming from people that don't like overcooked veggies.
jgtidd
Tried the cafe for the first time, I was really looking forward to it. But unfortunately I would never go back. We ordered a cookie dough milkshake and a banana milkshake and was told they had no cookie dough. So we ordered two banana only to be told after 15 mins of waiting they can only do vanilla. So we went for vanilla and I couldn’t even finish it. It was just frothy milk, no taste what so ever. We also ordered a brownie and a flapjack and they were dry and rock hard. I’m glad we didn’t choose anything off the lunch menu because the prices are ridiculous for a cafe. I don’t mind paying a bit more for a premium product but this certainly wasn’t. We then went and bought sourdough bread and some butter in the farm shop for £10!! And the bread was dry and stale like it was 2 days old. The one positive is the butter was very nice. Very disappointed.
Realviewreviews
We are from out of area and needed somewhere to meet family as a middle ground and saw this was halfway. We saw online that you could book a table but as it was last minute and just a garden centre we thought it would be ok to just turn up for brunch because it didn’t look as if booking was imperative. Anyway got there and there was a sign saying no more space for walk ins. We asked the lady and she said we could be seated for coffee and cake but nothing else. Was a bit standoffish actually. Anyway we took that and sat down. The table we were on had a reservation for 1.45pm. It was currently 11.30 so plenty of time to get off the table before it was taken again. Cakes were a bit on the dry side so bit disappointed about that, the server wasn’t that friendly and two of us had to send our coffees back as they were barely warm. Our experience in the garden centre shop was fab the staff were super friendly and helpful, however in the restaurant it was mixed, I appreciate that we were given a table even when it said you had no space for walkins so that was good, however what I fail to understand is why we couldn’t have ordered breakfast or lunch? Why did we have to only have cake? There was a good 2 hours and 15 mins till the next booking, what was stopping you saying guys you can have food but order quickly and we need you out by 1.45 due to a booking?…… I feel like it would have made a better customer experience. Or failing that - explain why we could only have cake so that we understood.
Edward Thomas
Excellent lunch outside today lots and lots of seasonal and garden merchandise. Staff in restaurant and garden centre are always pleasant and helpful, love going here.
Fishystevep
The quality of food at this restaurant/cafe is just terrific. Salmon and scrambled eggs on sourdough toast with a cup of black coffee is possibly my favourite thing in the world and here they do it brilliantly. Staff are cheerful and polite (which given how busy they are is to their credit). Environment is a high volume cafe accessible to families and dog owners yet they serve food that would shame expensive low volume boutique hotels and bistros. It must be a very motivated and well led kitchen brigade. Knocks spots off the garden centre offerings nearby that would fancy themselves as competitors.
Used to be great but now everything is cardboard and food and drink is over zapped in microwave making it far to hot to handle. Awful experience. I hope this is temporary whilst the works are taking place.
Really disappointed with the visit today. Whilst recognising these are temporary changes, the service was appalling. The food was "cremated" and when spoken to the staff attitude wss 'couldn't give a damn'. Really sad the changes will not keep the atmosphere it once had.
The garden centre has stock control problems and poor training. Looking for a pair of wellies they only had size 12, and no other sizes. Which means they've completely run out and have not got systems in place to replace other sizes - £20.00 lost to the business. Then three of us went into the cafe for a drink and cake. For some reason only one person can make coffee and the other two people are their to just stand and watch. It wasn't busy yet having already waited 5mins for our drinks I asked how long they'd be... we were still three orders down the queue. And I couldn't work out why two people were just standing around and couldn't make hot drinks - and the one who could was also making hot sandwiches - a training gap seems to be the obvious answer. So I cancelled the two hot drinks as we didn't have time to wait around and we wanted to have them with our cakes. £7.00 refunded. Total missed revenue for Lowdens - £27.00. Cake sales - £9.00. So Lowdens lost two thirds of their revenue from me due to poor stock control and poor training. Which gave a poor experience, did repetitional damage, and has led to this review. So arguably the loss to Lowdens is somewhat higher than the £27.00 of actual revenue.
For your gardening needs, Lowden has a vast variety of plants, trees, flowers and shrubs.However, the visit to Lowden as a coffee and cake catch-up meeting place was a rather underwhelming experience and not one to repeat.The Woodshed café serves hot drinks in disposable cups and cake in paper bags and cardboard boxes. Not sure why? It certainly isn't easy to eat cake from a box. Maybe they recycle them? It seems such a waste of resources.The hot drinks and food are not bought to your table, you have to listen out for your name to be called. This is not an ideal scenario in a busy and rather noisy environment. The rock cake looked more like a squashed scone and was quite dry. The carrot cake was okay but not noteworthy in any way.As it was cold, the wood burner was on, which made the café warm but not too warm (the cold crept in through the various entrances/exits). The smoke from the wood burner also gave the cafe a very woody odour, which then permeates your hair and clothes (and also gave me a stinking headache).In summary, Lowden is great for plants but not for food and drinks.
Over for breakfast....up grading, great breakfast as usual but could have been hotter cold plates
The lamb flatbread was lovely but the beef bourginon was Luke warm. Should have been served hot but even the plate had not been warmed so had to send back. Second attempt still not hot enough. Although the restaurant was not busy and had sufficient staff the service was slow. Had to wait 20-30 mins for dessert Although they were both delicious.
Always good customer service from Sarah and the crew, tried out The Woodshed today, that was serving as on overflow to the main restaurant. It has higher chairs, and sockets and USB charging.
We are never disappointed when we come here for lunch. We have been on several occasions and each time the food has been amazing. It’s very reasonably priced in comparison to other local garden centres and the food is of way better quality. The coffee is wonderful and the whole vibe of the restaurant is cool but quaint. Staff are always attentive and friendly. The garden centre and gift shop is also lovely. A huge range of indoor decor and lovely traditional children’s toys. A little bit expensive but you get what you pay for.
A very impressive garden centre both in size and layout. Has various eateries. The food was lush. Will def go again.
I’m reasonably local - I’ve visited on numerous occasions- mostly breakfast. I love the setting, full of plants and trees and log fires. Breakfast is excellent quality as you’d hope from a farm shop; great sausages , bacon and lovely coffee additionally. Staff I’ve found d are always friendly even if busy. Note that it’s not table service but I don’t think this detracts from the overall experience. Great garden centre to have a look around afterwards with lots of tempting buys. Couldn’t recommend enough!
Restaurantji Recommends
My husband and I had a lovely Roast Beef lunch here on the Thursday before Christmas. The Beef was well cooked, lovely and tender. It was served with a huge, delicious Yorkshire Pud, 5 Roasties, several Parsnips and good size bowl of Veg. Carrots and Red Cabbage were cooked perfectly. Our only compliant was the Brussels, which were very undercooked... and that's coming from people that don't like overcooked veggies.
Tried the cafe for the first time, I was really looking forward to it. But unfortunately I would never go back. We ordered a cookie dough milkshake and a banana milkshake and was told they had no cookie dough. So we ordered two banana only to be told after 15 mins of waiting they can only do vanilla. So we went for vanilla and I couldn’t even finish it. It was just frothy milk, no taste what so ever. We also ordered a brownie and a flapjack and they were dry and rock hard. I’m glad we didn’t choose anything off the lunch menu because the prices are ridiculous for a cafe. I don’t mind paying a bit more for a premium product but this certainly wasn’t. We then went and bought sourdough bread and some butter in the farm shop for £10!! And the bread was dry and stale like it was 2 days old. The one positive is the butter was very nice. Very disappointed.
We are from out of area and needed somewhere to meet family as a middle ground and saw this was halfway. We saw online that you could book a table but as it was last minute and just a garden centre we thought it would be ok to just turn up for brunch because it didn’t look as if booking was imperative. Anyway got there and there was a sign saying no more space for walk ins. We asked the lady and she said we could be seated for coffee and cake but nothing else. Was a bit standoffish actually. Anyway we took that and sat down. The table we were on had a reservation for 1.45pm. It was currently 11.30 so plenty of time to get off the table before it was taken again. Cakes were a bit on the dry side so bit disappointed about that, the server wasn’t that friendly and two of us had to send our coffees back as they were barely warm. Our experience in the garden centre shop was fab the staff were super friendly and helpful, however in the restaurant it was mixed, I appreciate that we were given a table even when it said you had no space for walkins so that was good, however what I fail to understand is why we couldn’t have ordered breakfast or lunch? Why did we have to only have cake? There was a good 2 hours and 15 mins till the next booking, what was stopping you saying guys you can have food but order quickly and we need you out by 1.45 due to a booking?…… I feel like it would have made a better customer experience. Or failing that - explain why we could only have cake so that we understood.
Excellent lunch outside today lots and lots of seasonal and garden merchandise. Staff in restaurant and garden centre are always pleasant and helpful, love going here.
The quality of food at this restaurant/cafe is just terrific. Salmon and scrambled eggs on sourdough toast with a cup of black coffee is possibly my favourite thing in the world and here they do it brilliantly. Staff are cheerful and polite (which given how busy they are is to their credit). Environment is a high volume cafe accessible to families and dog owners yet they serve food that would shame expensive low volume boutique hotels and bistros. It must be a very motivated and well led kitchen brigade. Knocks spots off the garden centre offerings nearby that would fancy themselves as competitors.